Rabbi Meredith Cahn

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Torah Tots, Dinner and Kabbalat Shabbat Services Cancelled Tonight

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Based on the winter storm warning set for 5 pm tonight, we have decided to cancel events at temple tonight, so that people can keep safe, warm and dry. We encourage you to have a family dinner, light the candles, say kiddush over wine or juice, and pick up or defrost a challah.

 

If you want to say some prayers, you can download the iT’filah app: for a small cost, you can have Mishkan Tefillah’s Friday night service on your tablet, complete with some music, some reading. It’s a great app for situations like this.

 

This week’s torah portions, the last two in the book of Exodus/Shemot, describe the completion of the mishkan, our moveable sanctuary in the wilderness. In an essay in the Women’s Torah Commentary (a text of our holy text I thoroughly recommend), scholar Rachel Adler talks about why we need the plethora of detail (that appears twice). She explains that the map of the mishkan is the map our ancestors saw of the cosmos. Then, she walks us through the way ritual and symbol allow us to connect meaning with objects. She used the mighty menorah as an example: the pure gold menorah, with cups, calyxes and petals, the cups shaped like almond blossoms, each stem shaped like branches. The menorah had to be lit by a priest from a ramp, because it was so tall, and it looked like a tree that was on fire, but was not consumed… sound familiar yet? Each time we light the menorah, we are connecting to the moment when a bewildered shepherd first encountered the Holiness that propelled us on our journey of liberation.

 

Adler also reminds us that each time we light candles, like Shabbat candles, or the candles we will light before our seders in a few weeks, we are connecting to the metaphor of the light of consciousness and of knowledge, and the source of that light. Each shabbat we bring that light into our home or the synagogue, we are connecting to the Source of all the knowledge we value.

 

Keep safe and shabbat shalom.

Shabbat Zachor – Remember to Forget

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Purim/Pesach quiz time:

Have you ever heard of the 4 parshiyot?

The four parshiyot are special readings from the torah that are taken out of order, and read on four of the 6-7 weeks leading up to Passover, so they overlap with Purim and relate mystically to both holidays…

So a big question is – if we have our regular torah portions, why, why do we have these additions at this time? Isn’t there enough to discuss?

One of my teachers, R. Finley the Elder, posits that the rabbis of Talmudic times established these special readings to prepare us for Passover, on our way through Purim. Preparing us for Passover is about preparing us for — what?

Liberation….

If you believe, as I do, that one way of looking at the Torah is our human attempt to “know the mind of God” – in other words, to find ways to live a godly life, to be imitateo dei, to take our human existence, with all its faults, its messiness, its pitfalls, and work, really work, dig into the muck, to elevate our souls, then this season heading us toward liberation is a gift from our ancestors.

First, let’s look at liberation. It’s not about being free to “have it all.” Buying the most iPads or iPhones or chocolate, or traveling to the most exotic places, or skiing the most mountains.

In the Torah, it was specifically to be able to go and worship – or serve – our God, our way – it was about religious freedom. Liberation has always been about this ability to live our lives as Jews, who follow the teachings of our ancestors, who follow the Torah as mediated by the rabbis in the Talmud. It’s about understanding our role in the world, about loving our neighbor as ourselves, not doing to others that which is hateful to ourselves, protecting the widow, orphan and stranger – all that.

It’s also about moving our soul further along its path, freeing ourselves from the chains that keep us from being our fully present self, who has no personal impediments to being that godly person. And I think that is where these four parshiyot really are important.

Traditionally, come tomorrow morning, we would use one torah to read this week’s torah portion, Tetzevah, all about the priests’ clothing, and then we would use our other Torah to read a special reading at the end.

So the special readings… Last week, had we not had a speaker, we would have dived in to discuss Shabbat Shekalim… (Each of the four readings is specially named, not for the torah portion they come from, but for the reason it is read this week.)

Shekalim? What does that mean? Who knows?

Shekels… money. The half shekel we are commanded to pay to support the community. Each one of us. Because there are membership dues to be part of the community. (This reading actually appears in next week’s torah portion…) so from a very early stage, we believed that paying dues is the responsibility of every Jew in the community. Part of what leads to liberation… because if we are not part of the community, we are alone, and of little use to ourselves or to others. Imagine the discussion we could have had about taxes!

This week is called Shabbat Zachor. Zachor… Remembrance, memory… Shamor v’zachor – you shall keep/observe and remember – from Lecha Dodi… or the 10 commandments. Yizkor is from the same root. Remember.

Remember what?

Do you remember Amalek? What do you remember about him? [Esau’s grandson…]

The reading for Shabbat Zachor is from Deuteronomy 25:17-19:

17Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—18how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. 19Therefore, when Adonai your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that Adonai your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

It refers to an episode about 4 torah portions ago – Beshallach, when, almost as soon as we crossed the Sea of Reeds, Amalek and his people attacked us. They are given the “honor” of being the first nation – of so many to come – to attack us. And they did it in such a cowardly manner — surprise attack on the most vulnerable.

Do you know who is reputed to be a descendant of Amalek?

Haman. (part of the connection to Purim, certainly.)

And in modern times, who was considered at least a spiritual descendant of Amalek?

Yes, Hitler.

What does this teach us?

That we have a long history battling downright evil that comes from an offshoot of our family. That there is family business that has not been healed yet.

Are there people in your life who make you crazy? Whom you can’t believe get away with what they get away with? Who seem to cause a lot of harm around them? And they keep getting your goat? People who trigger you? Into a rage? Or large discomfort?

The reason I bring this up is that, until part way through rabbinic school, I always had someone who played that role in my life. My sister, my other sister, Sam’s ex-wife, a teacher, a colleague. Always someone who took my attention, who triggered me. Each one of them had some component that allowed me to feel completely justified in my reaction. At some point, I recognized the pattern, but couldn’t stop it. At another time, it hit me that the person who was triggering me this time  had many important lessons to teach me, but indeed the most important one was to recognize this pattern and figure out how it was serving me, and not serving me any more. Probably the biggest lesson in rabbinic school –to look at how my own reactions are really about me and, most important, how they prevent me from being the type of person I want to be. More compassionate, less judgmental, more forgiving of myself and others. Pirke Avot, the teachings of our fathers, in the Mishna, teaches us – who is the wise person? The one who can learn from everyone. Even if it’s – don’t do what the ex-wife did.  I think the people who trigger us may indeed be the people who teach us the most about ourselves and what we need to work on. I know it has been true for me, especially the people who represent the unhealed family pain.

Do you recognize yourself in this? Maybe not as passionate, but there?

In a class, someone noted that her husband’s ex-wife was NOT a nice human being, and she was not going to ever become friends with her, etc. I totally get this. But I think the path toward liberation about these Amalek-type people in our lives is to be able to pray that they will come around and lose their evil ways, that they will learn a new path. That we will have compassion for them.

When we can look at our enemies with true compassion, rather than the need to strike out, then we can free ourselves of some of the chains that keep us from our own liberation.

Finally, the other fascinating aspect of the Amalek story – in all its permutations – is that we are supposed to remember to blot out the memory of Amalek. Remember to blot out. What does that mean to you?

To me, it means – remember the lessons from our enemies, but do not dwell on them, do not give them too much power over our lives. Acknowledge them, but only give them the due they deserve.

And so, as we move through this season of Purim into the time of our liberation, I pray that we can acknowledge what keeps us from being the people we want to be, learn from everything and everyone around us, and keep it all in perspective. And with that – I say shabbat shalom!

Does What Makes Us Uncomfortable Prevent Us from Seeing the Rich Tapestry of Creation? Mishpatim 5772

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Nearly 60 years ago, some social scientists did an experiment in which they took 22 11 year old boys up to a large camp on separate buses, divided them into two groups and deposited them in separate ends of the camp. They couldn’t see each other. didn’t even know the other group existed at first.

The kids on each side of the camp bonded with each other for several days: playing games, swimming, eating, complaining about the food, giving themselves a group name, putting the name on t-shirts.

Then the kids from each side of the camp were brought together for a series of competitions with a winner take all set of prizes – the team that finished second got nothing.

The kids became enemies: they played dirty tricks on each other. They raided each other’s cabins, and not in a playful way, they burned each other’s flags, they called each other names.

The next step in this experiment (and I am still trying to figure out what kind of parents signed a release form for this) involved bringing the two groups of kids together for some fun – shared dining hall, shared movies. But these devolved into food fights and other violence.

The final step in the experiment they manufactured a series of projects the kids had to work on together: first they created a water pipe problem that both groups had to solve together. Then they rode a bus that broke down and they had to push together. As they worked side by side on a common problem, they overcome their animosity, their enmity toward each other, and by the time they drove away on the same bus, they were sitting next to each, laughing and singing. And the prize winners used their winnings to buy ice cream for everyone.

This experiment goes to prove two torah verses in this week’s parasha, Mishpatim.

Ex. 23:4 When you encounter your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering, you must take it back to him. 5 When you see the donkey of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless raise it with him.

 

How often do we want to walk away from our enemy’s problems, because we think they deserve it. Why should I bother? They wouldn’t help me. They were mean to me.

You ever feel like that?

I think this mishpat – or law or rule, addresses two really important Jewish principles:

First – it’s in no small part about taking care of animals, whether you like their owners or not. You can’t let them wander the streets or fields in danger, and you can’t let them suffer, just because they belong to your enemy. This is called Tza’ar Ba’alei Chayim: Cruelty to Animals. We forbid it. It’s more important than pretty much anything except saving human life… Did you all know that it was embedded in the Torah, right here?

Second, we see the principle of co-existing peacefully together in community, even if you don’t love the person. It doesn’t tell you to love your enemy. But it does tell you you have to help them out when they are in trouble. Because maybe – just maybe – by helping them, working with them, you can see another side of their story, and turn the enmity into something better. It doesn’t say that you have to help if your enemy is sitting by the side of the road crying, not doing anything – you have to do it imo – with him. You cannot walk on by, however much you want to. You must surely assist…

This week, we had a great discussion in the older religious school class about people with disabilities and how we are supposed to treat people who are different from us–which seems to bear on this topic as well. In class, a lot of the discussion had to do with appearance – remember the story of the rabbi meeting the very ugly man? We make enemies for such strange reasons sometimes. And later on, maybe after we’ve worked with them, or we’ve really listened to their back story, or we’ve been open to hearing their core values, we realize, maybe we decided too soon about our relationship. Oftentimes, it’s because they remind us of ways we act that we don’t like, or they remind us of people we have a challenging relationship with or we don’t like how they look or we are afraid of how they look.

Which brings us back to the similarities in how we treat people with disabilities and enemies… The torah and our tradition give us important tools to make the transition to seeing them and treating them differently. The first is from these verses: help them by working with them. The second is through an ancient and yet modern blessing. Blessings can offer us windows into wonder, opportunities to view our experiences and observations in a positive, even holy light. This is especially true for the blessings for seeing someone or something different from ourselves.

 

Baruch ata YHWH, Eloheinu melekh ha’olam, m’shaneh habriot.

You are the source of blessing, YHWH, sovereign of the universe, who forms diversity in creation.

 

It reminds us that we are each of us part of the variety and the blessings of the world. We use the same blessing when we see many other of the world’s varied creations: the blessing, m’shaneh habriot, is also said on seeing an elephant, an ape or a long-tailed ape (B. Berachot 58b). When we combine this idea, that the Cause of Being has created this rich diversity, with the idea that we are all created b’tzelem Elohim, with the spark of divinity, then we see that people with disabilities and our enemies are part of the wonders of creation, not people who are “less than.”

The blessing is a reminder that when we see someone who is different, we should consecrate the moment with a blessing, rather than exclaim in shock and horror. It is a way to promote civil society and teach us good manners. It gently guides us to see everyone who id different, no matter how different, as part of the wondrous tapestry of creation. This blessing declares that however you are born, you are still a blessing.

I am indebted to R. Elisheva Beyer, R. Jonathan Sacks’ Covenant and Conversations: Exodus (and the the Torah Study group of Congregation Shomrei Torah for giving it to me), and to Rabbi Nathaniel Ezray for this discussion. The experiment described at the beginning was the Robber’s Cave Experiment (psychclassics.yorku.ca/Sherif/).

Yitro – Balancing Justice and Peace and Our In-Laws

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In one of our classes a couple of weeks ago, we examined a news article about who is a Jew (Who Is a Jew? Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question, New York Times, 11/8/09). About two years ago in England, a case came before their highest court to decide this distinctly Jewish question. It was a startling, troubling case. It came to the court’s purview because the British government pays for parochial education, even Jewish day schools. When applications far exceed spaces, the schools are allowed to give preferences to their own religious adherents.

Do you smell the trouble yet?

An observant student, whose father was born Jewish and whose mother had converted before his birth, was denied admission because Mom had converted under the auspices of a progressive branch of Judaism, and the Orthodox authorities connected to the school had deemed her conversion invalid, and therefore considered neither her nor her son Jewish.

Even in not so litigious Britain, the family sued.

Which brings us to this week’s torah portion, Yitro, the 5th one in the book of Shemot or Exodus.

So this week’s torah portion is about matan torah, the giving of the aseret dibrot, the ten words, or ten things – what we think of as the 10 Commandments. Of course we should discuss them, I thought. Then I started reading the commentaries I’ve been studying on this year’s journey through the torah: Avivah Zornberg and R. Jonathan Sacks, two of the smartest people I’ve read from our times. Professor Zornberg combines ancient midrash with modern psychology with the medieval commentators to arrive at a deeply psychospiritual approach. R. Sacks pulls in similar commentaries to bring the text alive in much more grounded ways.

I’ve also noticed that this year, oftentimes, I stop at the very beginning of the portion and barely look at what we tend to think of as the meat of the parasha. After all the 10 commandments are – well, pretty big, but they are not what is calling to me this time.

So, while the parasha moves into those amazing moments at the foot of Mt. Sinai, with the mountain on fire, the people trembling and sharing a collective moment of awe, the story starts in a mundane, human place.

Yitro, priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law appears, with Moses’ wife and kids, for a visit.

What happens when your in-laws arrive? Does your father-in-law tend to tell you how he thinks you should live your life? Does he criticize you, while seeming to praise you? Or even without seeming to praise you? Do you get along? Do you value his opinion?

So Yitro comes because he heard – yishma – all that Adonai had done for us in Egypt. For centuries, sages have commented on this. Rashi, the 11th Century French commentator, notes that Yitro was so impressed because he had sampled all the local gods, knew them all, and had concluded that indeed, mi chamocha ba’elim? Who is like You, among the gods? He comes in a sort of spiritual ecstasy, ready to throw in his lot with ours, to follow our God. He leaves the honor he has earned as priest in Midian to be in the wilderness, the nowhere place, with us. Each time he is mentioned in this text, he sheds a little of his old identity – first, priest of Midian, even his name at a later point, until all he is is Moses’ father-in-law and a follower of Adonai.

At this moment, he’s here with Moses, and the rest of us, and almost immediately he starts in on Moses. “What you are doing is lo tov! Not good!” (Ex. 18:17)

First, note that lo tov, not good, only appears one other time in the torah — when God notes that it is not good for Adam to be alone…

So what is lo tov? Moses spends the whole day listening to the complaints and concerns of his kahal (community) and making judgments and decisions. And, not surprisingly, he is exhausted. Overwhelmed. Imagine all the people coming to him, one after another all day long… the sound alone would be overwhelming.

So Yitro tells him to delegate. Have judges over the thousands, the hundreds, the fifties and the tens. Yitro tells his son-in-law, “Make it easier for yourself by letting them share the burden with you—you will be able to bear up, and all these people too will go home in peace.” (Ex. 18:22-23)

Okay, it’s easy to understand the concept that this delegating will make Moses’ life easier. He won’t have as many people’s problems to solve every day. While he will still get the thorniest ones, he might have some rest and time for himself.

But why would the effect on the people be that they “too will go home in peace”?

R. Sacks offers a fascinating explanation for this, based on the teachings of the 19th century scholar Netziv – Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin. Imagine Moses, the greatest of all our prophets: when he saw a pair bringing their dispute to him, he could always discern immediately who was right and who was wrong. He would immediately make his decision, and there would always be a winner and a loser.

There is a Talmudic discussion (B. Sanhedrin 6b) in which the rabbis argue whether mediation is a worthy enterprise, and the upshot is that yes, it is – it is written – “surely where there is strict justice there is no peace, and where there is peace there is no strict justice. What then is the justice that coexists with peace? We say: mediation.” Mediation is the way to go, because peace – shalom – is one of our highest ideals.

But there is one key proviso: if the judge KNOWS who is right and who is wrong, then mediation cannot proceed. The judge cannot suppress justice in that way.

So, applying this concept to Moses and his team of judges, Netziv notes that Moses – well, he has to follow strict justice, because he knows almost by looking at the contestants who is in the right and who is not. But the people to whom he delegates the majority of the cases – they don’t know yet. They are in the ideal position of helping people to negotiate a solution, listening, guiding them so that, rather than winners and losers, there might be win-win solutions, and a path to peace.

These mediators in most respects were lesser men than Moses, but this allowed their skills to help bring the people to peace. It takes more than a great law giver, more that the greatest prophet to keep a society. It takes peacemakers as well. It takes all sorts of people working together, doing what they do best, to make the community function.

So, if we go back to my opening story, about the English court case about Who is a Jew, it surprised me – and saddened me — to read that R. Sacks, who explains so beautifully, how important it is to have peacemakers and mediators in our community, was the person who rejected the boy and his mother as Jews. The court held that it was discrimination to decide who is a Jew by ethnicity and race, rather than by practice. It’s a very challenging court case for us, and I wonder what kept all the parties from coming to peace, mediating the problem within the Jewish community rather than going outside it.

Here in this torah portion we see a proselyte, the former priest of Midian, be honored without a ceremony of conversion: just his awe was enough. Moses’ interfaith marriage produced two Jews. We didn’t argue whether someone who believed or who practiced counted or not.

Yitro also highlights the benefits of working through the opposing ideals of justice and peace, of how creating peace is essential, while maintaining justice. May we always hold these ideals in our hearts and put them into practice in our lives. In our litigious age, may we work toward the ideals of our ancestors, that we may all go home in peace…

Getting Lost on Our Way to Freedom – Beshallach 5772

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Do you know this story?

Someone who is a true believer in God falls into a raging river… but he knows that God will save him, so he doesn’t worry. First some people throw a rope to him, but he refuses to grab on, because, well, he knows that God will save him. Then a Coast Guard boat comes along and prepares to send someone over to rescue him. But he refuses their offer, because – he knows that God will rescue him. Then a helicopter comes and lowers a diver. And this too he refuses, because – well, he knows that God will save him. So what happens to him? Yes, he drowns…

He arrives in heaven and is welcomed in, and he has an audience with the Holy Blessed One, and he has one question… “Why did you let me drown?”

The Spirit of the Universe answered, “What do you mean? I set you people with a rope, a Coast Guard boat and then a helicopter. You refused to take them.”

In Beshallach, our torah portion, the fourth one in the book of Exodus, or Shemot, we open with a curious verse:

When Pharaoh had let the people go, God led them not by the way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for God said, “The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.” So God led the people roundabout, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds. (Ex. 13:17-18)

It’s a curious way to open the parasha. After all, we had just been liberated from slavery. Generally, when we read liberation stories, we hear about the exuberance, the relief, the joy—before we get to that moment when reality happens, and freedom has its own challenges.

But not us— for us, God is worried that if we get a glimpse of harsh reality, we’ll decide the old way, however hard, is better than the unknown.

Do you ever feel that way? That you know that some behavior is not good for you, but that change is just TOO hard? Better to suffer the slings and arrows of the what you know, than strike out and take a risk?

Avivah Zornberg points out that while God is concerned that we might have a change of heart, God can’t prevent that from happening, but can, at least take us farther away from Egypt, the roundabout way, make it harder to get back. Because after all, are the men going to ask for directions? How can we outsmart ourselves to keep ourselves from doing what we know keeps us in slavery?

Not long after, we reach the Sea of Reeds. The Egyptians, with their chariots and horses, are separated from us, by the pillars of smoke and cloud. With them at our heels, and the sea in front, we start our long kvetch:

And they said to Moses, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt?”

Moses reassures them and “then Adonai said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward.'”

Another curious comment from the Divine One. Moses hadn’t cried out to God, but had comforted the people, trying to instill hope and faith. But even without that, you might wonder — what is this – Tell the Israelites to go forward?

This is the original version of my opening story… God has done everything for us – 10 plagues, keeping the Egyptians on the other side of the pillars. At what point do we actually have to take the rope or the lifeboat offered?

Do you know the midrash about Nachshon?

According to this rabbinic tale, we were crowded at the shore of the Sea, with the Egyptians at our back, and Moses had raised the mighty staff as God had instructed him, but nothing happened. The congregation was scared, but no one wanted to put even so much as a toe in. Except this one guy, Nachshon… He waded in in his sandals. Up to his ankles – nothing happened. Up to his knees. Still wading. Up to his waist. Still nothing. His chest. Nada… He keeps going, because he knows that God will save him. He is in up to his nose… and at that moment, the waters part. His courageous act of faith, according to the rabbis, was the last necessary ingredient for the miracle to happen.

His ability to take those steps, face his fears, and risk his life—and his reputation—to move his life forward – that’s the counterstory, the other narrative, telling us what we need to do in this moment.

So this parasha teaches us… overcoming our slave mentality, moving toward our own liberation – whatever than means – sometimes requires putting up obstacles or as much distance as we can from the old ways. It sometimes mean that praying is important, but after a point, we need to step into the water up to our noses, if we want to break free and see the miracle. I pray that each of us can lose our way back to the old patterns and can step into the waters whether it’s scary or not.

A Rose by Any Other Name…Vaera 5772

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In one of my favorite plays, two young people meet at a party and fall in love at first glance. But it turns out their parents have been enemies for years, and her parents would have him killed if they knew he was even present in the room, let alone courting their precious daughter…

 

Neither of them knows the other’s name for awhile, and when they learn it, both realize the challenges they are up against… Anyone know the play?

 

That night, she climbs out on her balcony and utters some of The most famous words in the English language…

 

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo…

 

And then she says,

O! be some other name:

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;

And for that name, which is no part of thee,

Take all myself.[1]

 

What do you think? Does it make sense?

 

So when I was growing up, I had many names. My “official” nickname was Merry, like in Christmas. My mother called me Digitalis – which I later learned was a heart medicine – she was telling me I was good for her heart.

 

Making the change from Merry to Meredith when I was 19 was a very big change, and indeed, my family still struggles with it, decades later… It’s more grown-up. More cultured – indeed Meredith means “goddess of the sea” – not a particularly Jewish name, but one I liked, as a lover of the sea…

 

My daughter, Olya, has been called by 3 names – well, way more, but just based on her birth name… Each one is just enough different to describe a different person, almost. Her name means “holy” in Russian. For someone with her beautiful soul, that makes sense to me.

 

What about you? Do you know who you were named for? Do you know what your name means? Have you changed what people call you? If so, why?

 

This week, Sam and I watched The King’s Speech again on TV. I’m an Anglophile, and I love Colin Firth, and I love movies about people overcoming adversity… so a perfect movie for me… I was struck this time by the moment when Winston Churchill, who became Prime Minister of England during the second World War, asked the Duke of York what he would be called when he became king – certainly not Albert (the name his parents gave him)… Maybe George, like his father…

 

Juliet was wrong: What’s in a name matters.

 

Which brings me to the Torah portion. We are in Vaera, the second parasha of the second book, the book Shemot, or Exodus. We are already slaves to Pharaoh, Moses has already met God at the burning bush, and now they are discussing Moses’ new job as redeemer. Moses is scared, for oh, so many reasons. He has a speech impediment, or blockage of the tongue. He fled Egypt 40 years before, after accidentally killing one of his grandfather’s slavemasters. He doesn’t think anyone will believe him. How is he, a shepherd, to stand up to the Pharaoh?

 

So one of his questions to God is basically, “Who shall I say sent me?” Who will vouch for me? Who has enough credibility to make them believe redemption is at hand? Who will make Pharaoh tremble in his sandals?

 

And God offers a perplexing response:

 

“I am Adonai” – YHWH – the tetragrammaton, the Holy Name that is so holy we don’t even know how to pronounce it anymore, so we use a word that means My Lord and Master.

 

The Holy One continued and said, “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, and made the covenant to them that I mean to honor now. But now I want everyone to call me YHWH.”

 

We have many names for God in Hebrew:

  • El Shaddai – God almighty in some translations – god of breasts in others
  • El Elyon – the god of gods
  • HaKodesh Baruch Hu –the holy blessed one
  • Adonai Tz’va’ot – Lord of Hosts
  • Elohim – A generic name for God that speaks to the judgment aspect
  • Eloheinu – Our God
  • Melech M’lakim – King of Kings
  • Av Harachamim – Father of Mercy.

 

And more…

 

Why so many names?

 

There is a teaching in the Talmud, that compendium of rabbinic wisdom through 600 CE, that there are 70 faces of God. Because each of us sees holiness, sees divinity, sees the sacred in a different way. If we went around the room and told each other what we see when we look at the face of God, I bet we’d get multiple answers, and maybe more than one from each person, and if we asked again next week, there might be yet another answer or three from each of us.

 

Throughout our sacred literature, we see over and over that one’s name matters. Leah named each of her children with a specific purpose for them. People’s names changed regularly – Avram and Sarai became Abraham and Sarah. Jacob became Yisrael.

 

We believe that names matter so much that when we are either very sick or have escaped a calamity, or achieve something, we change or add to our names. Because we think names are a window to our souls, to our very essence.

 

And so with God.

 

Rashi, the 11th Century French sage, interpreted this verse by saying that God’s name YHWH, represents God’s attribute of faithfulness, of keeping promises. And the Redeemer wanted to announce the keeping of the promise finally – or at least soon.

 

Rabbi Harold Schulweis, a noted contemporary rabbi, teaches that Adonai is the God of transformation: the name first appears in Chapter 2 of Genesis (2:4-5), together with Elohim, to describe the transformative acts that required our partnership:

 

When Adonai Elohim made earth and heaven—when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because Adonai Elohim had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no human to till the soil.

 

This is the God that we work together with to make things grow – this is the God of transformation, the God whom we acknowledge at hamotzi – a blessing that is not said over raw grain, but over the finished product of bread, that required the partnership of human and divine. The energy that transforms.

 

As God uses the four letter unpronounced name, God is expressing the change about to happen, hoping to spark our memories and encourage us to join together in the movement from slavery to freedom, from holding onto our hurts, the chains that bind us, the old patterns of behavior that no longer work for us, from waiting for someone else to liberate us to joining together. We may not be able to do it by ourselves alone, but we can’t expect to do it without exerting ourselves as well… We need that partnership, the energy that transforms.

 

And so, I pray that we might find that energy together, and redeem ourselves together.

 

Shabbat shalom.

 

 


[1] Romeo and Juliet II, 1:35, 44-51.

Vayehi – A Parent’s Blessing

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Thirty years ago last Monday, my mother died suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly. Later in the service I will say Kaddish for her, just as I lit a yahrzeit candle for her on the evening of New Years Day. Somehow, it seems appropriate that this year, my first year as a rabbi leading a congregation while saying kaddish for my mother, that it falls on this week’s parasha, Veyechi, the very last chapter of the book of Breisheit, or Genesis.

 

We are at the end of the story of Abraham’s family, our family, our tribe, before we became a nation. We sit with Jacob, with Israel, at his deathbed, for what seems like days. We hear his deathbed instructions and prophecies and blessings for his children. We know that he wants to be buried in Israel, with his parents, grandparents and his wife Leah. We mourn with Joseph, his brothers, and indeed, all of Egypt. And then we quietly and quickly bury Joseph himself, noting that when we leave Egypt we will need to take his bones with us.

 

Jacob’s dying unfolds through a series of scenes that are beautiful and terrible, that replay old stories, that remind us of the past, and yet, look toward the future. Almost every word is packed with meanings beyond the simple story.

 

Jacob is the only patriarch to be surrounded by all of his sons as he dies. He is the only patriarch, despite his challenges as a parent, to have each son remain a believing, practicing Jew. He is the only patriarch to see his grandchildren.

 

And these grandchildren are astonishing in their own right. Let’s quickly review the siblings in the Torah: Cain and Abel: murder. Ishmael and Isaac: one banished. Rachel and Leah: sibling rivalry. Jacob and Esau: threatened murder, theft of the patriarchal blessing. Joseph and his brothers: hatred, threatened murder, selling into slavery. While Esau and Jacob, and the twelve sons of Jacob reconciled, and Ishmael and Isaac came together to bury their father, none of these were particularly healthy relationships. Until we meet Menashe and Ephraim. We don’t know much about these sons of Joseph and Asenat. But we do know they overcame the family curse and were companions and friends. And even better, whereas Isaac seemed to have only one blessing to give, Jacob had one for each child.

 

Whether Jacob’s blessings were indeed blessings has been a matter of debate for centuries. Some were predictions. And several… well, to reach the term “blessing” we really have to explore and expand the concept.

 

Jacob knows each of his children very well: their goodness, their rage, their willingness to accept what they shouldn’t, their violence, their growth. And at this moment, before he dies, he tells each of them what he knows. Some of it isn’t pretty, by any means. Later in the Torah, the Holiness Code will command us in quick succession not to hate our brothers in our hearts and to be sure to rebuke our neighbor. Because of the proximity of the two statements, we can find a connection.

 

First, what we hate in others is often a reflection of what we don’t want to look at in ourselves. We deflect it onto someone else… But it is especially the rebuke part I want to think about today. What Jacob blessed Reuben, Shimon and Levi with was serious rebuke– some might not see it so much as a blessing: he noted their besetting sins, their behaviors that had caused problems for Jacob and the family, that had harmed others, indeed led to massacres and deep pain. This was probably not the sort of message they were looking for at that moment. But imagine how powerful it must have been: on one hand, Dad is dying, but shows incredible insight. On another hand, the words shoot like arrows, hitting twelve bull’s eyes. He knows each of them, knows their souls, their strengths. What is it like to hear your faults spoken aloud, the places where you know you need to change but where you can’t bear to look yourself? Would it bring you up short? Would you learn from it, or experience such shame that you couldn’t face it?

 

A part of me sympathizes with Reuben, Shimon and Levi. But another part of me thinks, they needed to hear it, take responsibility for their actions and grow. This was Jacob’s last chance to tell them the truth, the last chance help them turn, to make a break from the old behavior. We are told that if we don’t rebuke bad behavior, don’t stop it, it is as though we are co-conspirators. Jacob was doing what he thought he needed to.

 

And yet, the rabbis also teach us that rebuke needs to be done well. Rabbi Tarfon, a great sage of the Mishnah, sadly observed, “I swear by the Temple service, I doubt if there is anyone in this generation who is fit to rebuke others.” No one in Rabbi Tarfon’s time was exempt from the very faults they would point out in others — hardly role models capable of rebuking their neighbors with disinterest. Sound familiar?

 

On the other hand, Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah remarked, “I swear by the Temple service, I doubt if there is anyone in this generation who is able to receive rebuke.” Rabbi Eleazar observed that people in his time could not accept criticism as an act of love. Instead of listening with an open heart to a caring person describe their behavior and then trying to change, the object of the rebuke would become defensive. Sound familiar?

As Ecclesiastes reminds us, there really is nothing new under the sun. But each week, when we revisit these familiar stories, we have the opportunity to look and see how they touch us this time. Can we hear our loved ones give us feedback to help us grow? Can we give feedback in an effective way, whether it is tender or pulls the person up short, as long as it doesn’t embarrass them in public?

 

That part of me that thinks that Reuben, Shimon and Levi need to take responsibility for their actions, need to hear the truth and grow from it is the part that learned that lesson from my mother. We have to own our actions. While she didn’t give me explicit deathbed instructions or blessings, she taught me throughout our too few years together: to love books, to love social justice, to pay attention; so much of what and who I am today is because she was my mother.

 

Vayechi reminds us that we have up until the end to share with those we love, those whose souls we know intimately. But we don’t have to wait until then: we can meet them at any time. Let our children, our parents, our loved ones know where they have gone astray, where they shine and, most important, that we love them.

O Chanukah… Don’t Just Sit There

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Vayeishev/Chanukah 5772/2011

Shabbat Shalom

And almost Happy Chanukah!

One of my favorite versions of the Chanukah story comes from an old Saturday Night Live episode. A bunch of soldiers are sitting around the Temple, and ready to light the Ner Tamid, the eternal light and note that they have just enough oil to last one day…

It lasted two days. One soldier asked, “Is this a miracle yet?”

Someone responded, “No not yet…”

This goes on every day, “Is this a miracle yet? No, not yet” for six more days, until they reach the eighth day.

Someone asks again, “Is it FINALLY a miracle?” and a brave soul responds, “Yes, NOW it’s a miracle…” They all rejoice and celebrate his pronouncement.

And then someone suggests, “We should celebrate every year. What should we call the new holiday?”

They all scratch their heads, and finally someone looks over at the soldier played by Dan Akroyd, and offered, “Hey, Chanukah, why don’t you name it?”

And that, according to the writers of SNL, is how Chanukah came to be…

But really, not so much.

I noticed in religious school on Tuesday, that the story of the oil is the only one our kids know. So let’s try the story again here, and relate it to this week’s torah portion… But first the story…

Some context: the first temple was destroyed in 586 BCE — more than 2,500 years ago, by the Babylonians – what is now Iraq.

70 years later, the Persians (from what is now Iran) conquered Babylonia, and encouraged us to return to Judah and rebuild the temple.

In the 4th century BCE – about 150-200 years later, Alexander the Great conquered Persia and much of the known world at that time. And he and his armies spread Greek culture, with its theatre, and poetry, and philosophy, and sports. Many people thought Greek culture was the height of cool, brilliance, intelligence, and just the best. Some of the people of Judah began to incorporate some of the practices into their lives. Sort of like eating McDonald’s in Paris.

When Alexander died at a young age, his empire was divided into three parts – the Greek part, the Syrian part, and the Egyptian part. Judah was buffeted between Syria and Egypt, as the wars continued.

Eventually, in 175 BCE, King Antiochus IV took over in Syria and had dreams of reuniting Alexander’s empire. Initially, he let the Jews keep our practices and he, like King George III after him, just wanted money from us to support his war efforts. Then something happened to really irritate him, and he decided to “purify” Jewish culture, requiring us to give up kosher food and eat pig, give up Shabbat and other Jewish laws and practices.

Some people refused, and many of them were killed for their refusal. They were called the Hasidim, the Pious Ones. They also refused to defend themselves on Shabbat or try to rid Judah of the king, because it says in the Torah not to do those things. They were also the first religious martyrs.

Then, in the town of Modi’in, the local priest, Mattathias, refused to obey and started an open rebellion. He and his five sons, including Judah, formed a guerilla band (called the Maccabees, meaning the Hammer, so Judah Maccabee was Judah the Hammer)… The Maccabees included supporters from the range of Jewish belief and practice at the time: both militant Hasidim and Jews who liked and participated in the Greek culture, but objected to the ban on Jewish practices. The Maccabees fled to the hills, coming down to fight the large Syrian army. They knew the territory, the best places to attack and the best escape routes.

After three years, the Maccabees recaptured Jerusalem and the Temple from the Syrian Army. Then, they waited for the Messiah to come. They didn’t recognize the military victory as a miracle and waited three months for a sign from heaven, every day that went by being a crushing disappointment to the Hasidim… While waiting three months for the dedication (that’s what Chanukah really means), the Maccabees proceeded to purify the temple again, removing the Greek statues, and the altar that had been the site of pig sacrifice, and preparing to relight the Ner Tamid…

The military victory is only a part of what we celebrate during Chanukah. Just as important are other contributions made by the Maccabees: Mattathias and his sons challenged the Hasidic thought that put each halakha on equal footing with each other. They established the concept of setting priorities within the halakhic (legal) principles when they are in conflict. So when trying to decide between the halakhot (plural) of accepting the God-appointed king, or observing shabbat, or choosing life when you can’t do all three, they selected choosing life as the most important of these precepts. They also claimed, just as Thomas Jefferson did later, that a king who asks people to do things that are against the Torah – or laws of nature – has relinquished his authority or right to govern. The Maccabees incorporated Greek philosophical thinking to arrive at their halakhic decisions, employing what would become the hallmark of Jewish survival – taking the best of the surrounding culture to weave into Jewish life, so that Judaism keeps growing and thriving, or surviving in the  worst times… At the same time,  they maintained the principles and practices that are vital to being Jewish, and rejected those parts of the dominant culture that diminish being Jewish.

The Maccabees, or the family of Mattathias and Judah, called the Hasmoneans, came to power after the war ended. After the five brothers were dead, their children and grandchildren were priests and kings. However, the family became corrupt, so corrupt that initially people were happy to have the Romans come in and take over. (After the destruction of the Temple, they probably changed their thinking.)

The rabbis of the Talmud, our sages, had a big disagreement with the Hasmonean family, for a number of reasons, including the corruption. As a result, the Books of the Maccabees, which tells the Chanukah story, were not admitted into our sacred canon, our accepted holy books. The only mentions of Chanukah in the Talmud concern the miracle of the oil, and even there, the details are sketchy and the halakhot around candle lighting. There is no mention of a military victory. Later sages, such as Maimonides, brought the military victory back into our thinking, however.

So when we think about Christmas trees and lights, and caroling, and midnight mass, I think the best way we honor the Maccabees is to notice and maybe even enjoy those things with our Christian friends, but to consider what about being Jewish is important to us now, what is valuable both to ourselves, our families and the world at large, and then think carefully about preserving the best and dedicating ourselves to that vision.

And finally – how does this relate to the Torah portion…? This week we read Vayeishev, near the end of Breisheit or Genesis. We meet Joseph, and unparalleled sibling rivalry, when his brothers sell him in slavery. He becomes known as a dreamer and interpreter of dreams. We watch his maturation… The connection to Chanukah, however, is the very first line of the portion: Vayeishev Yaakov b’eretz m’guray aviv, b’eretz cana’an: And Jacob settled in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan… he settled.

The rabbis and Rashi and Avivah Zornberg – sages spanning millennia, discuss at length this one sentence. Jacob settled. They ask – who is a righteous person that he – or she – thinks they can just settle for a quiet life in this world? They will get that in the world to come; why should they expect it – or settle for it here in the physical, in the real world of today? It is our job not to settle, they argue, but to do the task for which we were born. Each of us has a piece of the world to repair, a part in tikkun olam, and rather than just sit there, dwelling in our parents’ house, we need to stand up and be counted. If you see injustice, don’t let it continue. If you hear someone’s pain, don’t let it fester. If there is something you CAN fix, then do not sit there – do something. And the rabbis tell us in Pirkei Avot, in the Mishnah, you are not required to finish the task, but you must start it. Had Mattathias settled for being able to live quietly in the land, and hadn’t stood up for what he knew to be right, if his followers from ALL beliefs of Judaism hadn’t stood up to join the Maccabees, we might not be sitting here tonight.

And so, when we start lighting our candles on Tuesday, let’s recount why being Jewish is important and how we can stand up for what we believe in.

Shabbat shalom!

We are the Children of Israel

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Have you ever had a dark night of the soul? When you struggled with a challenge you couldn’t see your way out of?

 

This week’s torah portion, Vayishlach (and he sent), is about the mother of all dark nights of the soul… And it has so much to teach us about how we handle crises…

 

Last week, our patriarch Jacob dreamt of the ladder, and recognized that God was in that place, and he hadn’t known it…
This week, decades have passed, he is leaving his father-in-law’s house and heading home with his wives, children, servants and herds, about to meet his brother, Esau, long years after Esau had threatened to kill him for stealing his birthright and more important, his blessing from their father.

 

Jacob sends servants on ahead with initial gifts to his brother, and they return to report that Esau has arrived with 400 men. Jacob is terrified and in great distress. He is sure his brother has brought those men to kill him and his family.

 

So he prepares for the worst: separates everyone and everything into two groups, moves them, prays… No matter how much planning we do, we are never completely ready for that crisis when it hits, a cancer diagnosis, an injury to our children, the loss of a job. And yet, Jacob reminds us that preparedness is key.

 

And alone, he crosses the river. Because in a way, in crisis, each of us is indeed alone. We may be holding together as a family or a couple or a community, but each of us has to come through it in their own way, face their demons, or their adversaries their own way.

 

And the Jacob spends his dark night of the soul… wrestling, with what the torah calls an ish, usually defined as a man, but sometimes as a divine being… but what many commentators believe to be his shadow, those parts of himself he can’t quite own. What he did to his brother many years ago may have been pressing on his conscience. After all, he had spent so much of his life trying to be his brother (holding his heel at birth, buying his birthright, stealing his blessing, trying to look like him…)… Had the actions of his past come to threaten his family? How would he handle the consequences of his youthful actions? He and the unnamed adversary battle until the break of day. Jacob shows us how perseverance is essential. Hanging on, blow by blow, nightmare by nightmare, and even when injured, the battle is not lost. We can suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and be transformed to a higher place.

 

In the end, injured, Jacob does not let go until he wrests a blessing from the other. Wresting a blessing from a fierce struggle… The deep psychological wisdom of this is overwhelming to me this week. As my daughter Olya recuperates from her trauma of last week, as I reread that verse, I thought of what we all learned this week: what to wear at a forge, how to call on support, and how to let ourselves be embraced by the love that came for all corners of California and beyond. How this community embraces its members. (I heard stories from congregants who had also benefited from the community’s embrace, and looked at offering help as a “no brainer” given their own experiences.)

 

But the final interesting and useful lesson from Jacob’s dark night of the soul is the blessing he received and its effect on us: his blessing was his name change from Jacob to Israel. Names in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, and the bestowing of them are a big deal. We all know what Israel means – yes, one who struggles with God and humanity and survived… We are not the children of Abraham, the children of Judah or the children of Moses. We are b’nai Yisrael, the children of Israel… the ones who struggle with God and humanity and survive… We have never experienced an easy journey, nor do we expect to. We expect to struggle with God, to argue, to walk away, to hold on, to question, to doubt, to yell and scream and cry, and to laugh and dance and sing, and yes, to survive.

 

We are the children of Israel…

 

I am grateful for our ancestor whose own dark night of the soul can inform mine: 1) to be as prepared as we can be for what life will throw at us; 2) to recognize that part of the journey has to be done alone; 3) to persevere, even through injury, until the sun rises, because it will; 4) to wrest a blessing from the experience; and finally 5) to remember that we are the children of Israel and we will find ways to survive.

 

Shabbat shalom!

Holiness is in this place…

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I’m a little late with my thoughts on studying Vayetzei. I spent most of last week fascinated as I’d never been with Jacob’s dream of the ladder anchored on earth, reaching the heavens, with angels or messengers of God going up and down, from which he woke, realizing that “God, was in this place, but I, I did not know.” (Genesis 28:16.) He then notes how awesome this place is: the abode of God and the gateway to heaven (which a friend noted at his adult Bar Mitzvah, was possibly the genesis of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, or even George Gershwin’s Staircase to Paradise).

 

Jacob was fleeing from his brother’s wrath, toward the refuge of his uncle and the possibility of finding a bride. He wasn’t ready to pray, he likely wasn’t thinking about prayer. However, the rabbis of the Talmud, in laying down the rules for our prayer tradition, noted that ma’ariv, the evening prayers, harken back to this dream experience, Jacob’s encounter with God. Our morning prayers come from Abraham’s getting up early to do God’s will, and the afternoon prayers reflect Isaac’s afternoon meditation in a field before meeting Rebekah, according to the sages. Abraham and Isaac intentionally went about their connection to the Divine, while Jacob’s happened unbeknownst to him. Not until he woke was he aware that the place in which he had slept was permeated with holiness.  Like so many of us, Jacob had been so caught up in his situation and what his future would hold, that he was oblivious to the presence of divinity.

 

Those aha! moments, those times when we experience flashes of something deep, mysterious, overwhelming that fill us with awe – those moments can be available to us as more than a flash, if we develop the ability to hear, listen, see, feel, taste, beyond the surface. That’s what the rabbis thought Jacob brought to the evening service: the sudden awareness of the holy in our midst, when it comes upon us. Jacob’s two dreams both took place at night, at the liminal moments when we are most likely to be afraid. His fears for his life were assuaged in both dreams by his surprising contact with another plane of reality.

 

I got waylaid from writing my drash because my beloved daughter Olya had a medical emergency 100 miles away. She was airlifted by skilled paramedics to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. She will be fine, eventually, physically probably sooner than emotionally. I was aware throughout the initial period of the holiness that embraced us, through the miracles that one of her fellow students responded to her emergency effectively and quickly, the paramedics responded so quickly in an isolated area, that the helicopter reached the medical center and that the staff responded so wholeheartedly and skillfully and presently despite that fact that she arrived as a “C. Doe” with no identification or insurance information. I was aware of the holiness I breathe, when the Sisterhood of Bnai Israel, and their rabbi, Mona Alfi, stepped up to offer us support, after two of them received my email plea; when our friends and family sent outpourings of love our way; when North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation’s members surrounded us with the same, as well as with material support, bringing the soft foods Olya needs for awhile and food so that Sam and I could spend our time tending to her, rather than shopping and cooking. God is in this place, and all I had to do was ask…and listen and accept and be grateful.