Shavuot - Reflections on Ruth

On Sinai, amidst thunder and lighting, great noise and a huge crowd, the people received Torah.

I can still hear the echoes of donkeys braying and goats bleating.  Parents quieting frightened babies.  Young children running around, playing games in the background.  Teenagers talking one to other, just waiting to be silenced by an adult.  People losing focus and then regaining it.

The messiness of mass revelation…

And they had their whole lives ahead of them…

The wounds from the shackles of slavery still healing…

The taste of freedom still just an imagined palate of honey and milk…not yet even touching the tongue.

When our ancestors received Torah, they were just a newly formed group of wanderers, not even sure yet what to expect.

And Torah, full of her commandments and laws.  Rules for a new way of life.  A gift.  A tree to hold fast to.  A way to live…

This was still a new relationship for them.  Still figuring things out and how to relate to this God, who both whispered and bellowed, and this Moses, who stumbled as often as he stood.  What did it even mean to be an Israelite?

No golden calves yet.  Or uprisings.  No dashed hopes or longings for Egypt. 

Just possibility and future and hope…

Revelation with the promise of redemption.

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You know, we read another story on Shavuot.  The book of Ruth.

Called the book of Chesed, the book of lovingkindness, this tale begins with sorrow.

Naomi and her family live in that Promised Land.  No longer just a hope.  This is new a reality. Generations after slavery.  Kings come and gone.  Freedom fully ours.

And Naomi’s town is auspiciously named Beit Lechem, the House of Bread.  But her windowsills are empty of rising dough.  Famine grips every home.  Until one night son turns mother and wife to husband. 

And the family leaves the land of promise.

Naomi and her family off.  Out of that promised land and back into the wilderness.  Hoping for a better life there.  The desert not so bleak after all.
   
They arrive in Moab, bread baskets empty, not a drop of sweetness in sight…forbidden landscape before.

And there, misfortune falls.  Husband and sons pass away. 

Naomi left with Moabite daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth. 

No options.  No protection.  No future in sight.  Calling out to God like her slave-ancestors before: Deliver me.

And so she sets out once again on a journey back to Canaan.

A journey of loss and disappointment and defeat.  In Naomi’s mind, there is nothing left.

Orpah turns back and Ruth remains.

Silent steps.  No children to cry out, no laughter seeping out of surrounding tents, no animals to bleat or bray, no thunder, no lightning.  Whispers so quiet they barely even reach the women’s ears. 

Until Ruth, frightened and alone, takes her adopted mother’s hand and says to Naomi “Your people will be my people, Your God will be my God.”

Both women dusty from the journey.  Tear lines tracked across their faces.  So much devastation.  So much sorrow.  What is left to see in this world?

No sacred letters etched on stone in the mountains above.  No great leader.  No voice of God.  No scrap of holy text. 

Just two women with empty pockets, who lost everything.  Alone and a little desperate.  Turning to one another.  And making a new covenant. 

And Ruth intones:  That story you sung to me while hanging laundry.  That God you cried out to at my husband’s grave.  That people whose language you speak.  That journey you traced.  All that you claim as yours, I claim as mine.

And Ruth promises Naomi redemption.  And Naomi can only taste bitterness. 

But the two walk on into a town that once again fills its bread baskets.  And meet a people who are willing to bend every rule for the good of the women who rejoined them.

This is our Torah they tell them.  And Ruth grasps it.  This is her tree.  And she holds fast to it. 

The townspeople sing to them quietly, words of Psalms “She who went out weeping carrying seeds to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves.”

This is a new revelation, born not out of promise but out of the knowledge that not every promise is fulfilled.

This is a new revelation, born not out of commandments, but out of broken rules and changed expectations.

This is a new revelation, born not out of noise and fanfare, but out of the quiet, even the darkness.

And this our revelation as much as the first.  Revelation happening not at one moment in time but again and again in our lives.  No matter which side of hope we find ourselves upon.  No matter which side of the promises we have made or have been made to us.

Torah revealing herself not in one form, but in many, opposites even.  Ready for us to add our stories to hers.

Parashat Bamidbar -- Tikkun

“Teach us to number our days,” declares the Psalmist, “that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12) .

For the past 45 days, we have counted.

Seven times seven, from Pesach to Shavuot…so close to the end now, 49 in sight.  Our days of counting almost complete.

This week, we begin a new book of Torah.  This Shabbat we are told to expand our enumerations: “Count people,” Torah tells us.

In Hebrew, this new book of Torah is called “Bamidbar,” in the wilderness.  In its columns, the Israelites are neither enslaved nor free.  They are the great wanderers trapped in a spiraling 40 year journey.  They are neither here nor there.  This is the desert.

In English, this new book is called Numbers, called by the Rabbis “The Book of the Census,” for it is bookended by two census takings.
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Rabbi Yaakov Culi teaches that something which is counted cannot lose identity or impact. From this interpretation, a great network of meaning is spun.

For the rabbis, the countings in Bamidbar were not just tactical exercises, but spiritual expressions.  The rabbis understood these to be the moments in which each individual Israelite became a part of history.  Each one remembered.  Black fire on white.

And yet, when I read this week’s parasha, I can’t feel poetry.  All I see is injustice.  When days are numbered, none is skipped.  But in Torah, when our people are supposedly numbered, only some are counted, others pushed aside.  These great moments of Numbers, recalled as empowering, are actually alienating and exclusive.

In the opening verses of Numbers, God commands Moses, “Take a census of the entire community of Israel.”  But, God continues, “Listing the names, every male, head by head” (Numbers 1:2). According to this, the entire community of Israel only includes Israelite men (and later priests).  What to make of this oversight?  The qualifiers continue: Only the first born priests, only Israelites of fighting age.  For generations, men and women, children and the elderly, teens and toddlers, labored through enslavement together.  Now, in the desert, they were sectioned off.  You are favored.  You are cast aside.

In Hebrew, the words for “take a census” are “s’u et rosh,” or, literally “lift the head.”  I imagine a cosmic game of duck, duck, goose taking place in the wilderness.  The people sat clustered, waiting with bated breath, tingling with anticipation, yearning for that divine tap, and with it the knowledge that they too were a part of the eidah, of God’s Israelite community.  And the disappointment they must have felt, when only some were tapped, others passed.  Their heads left fallen.

This is not the only time in which Torah says “the people,” but does not include all.  In fact, next week, as we welcome in Shavuot, the holiday on which we receive Torah at Sinai, we will read the famous revelatory passages of Exodus 19.  In these verses Moses commands “the people” in the preparations for Sinai, “do not go near a woman” (Exodus 19:14).  Clearly “this people” excludes the mothers and grandmothers, daughters and sisters, nursemaids and widows.  Duck, duck, goose…

In the 16th century, the rabbis of Safed created a tradition of Leil Tikkun Shavuot, meaning “repairing the night of Shavuot.”  This custom, of staying up all night to study, stemmed originally from the rabbis disappointment in their Israelite ancestors, who chose to sleep away the night before receiving Torah.  The mystics decided: we will now stay up all night studying Torah every Erev Shavuot in preparation for revelation.  A classic act of tikkun, repair.  Take something that you wish was done differently in the past and reenact differently—better in the present.

I am inspired by this Shavuot tradition.  If the kabbalists can rework aspects surrounding revelation and desert life, why can’t we?   Biblically only some were counted, others left marginalized.  And so, let us include.  Let us make whole.  Let us repair.

The rabbis clearly saw the dual nature of counting—both external (How many are we?) and internal (Who are we?).

On an external level, we at TIOH see counting as a value.  We are a diverse and inclusive community and pride ourselves on being such.  Our membership rolls are, in and of themselves, a tikkun to our ancestors’ missed opportunities to number fully their community.  We reject an exclusionary Torah or Judaism.  We seek to welcome everyone who walks in our doors.  In this community, every child, every man, every woman, every newborn, every senior citizen is not only counted, but also celebrated.  We are Jews by birth and Jews by choice, Jews of color, Jews of European descent and Jewish of Sephardic descent.  Intermarried, single, gay, straight.  And our efforts are ongoing.  This past Tuesday night, our Temple took another step toward full repair.  Our board unanimously passed a resolution in support of marriage equality.  Let every family be counted in this community, they said.

On an internal level, as well, we are left now to do our own spiritual work.  This tikkun is each of ours alone.  This is the time for both counting and receiving Torah.  This is the time to take stock of our own internal lives.  Let us claim our own Tikkun.  Our ancestors ignored, pushed aside, and made invisible members of their own community.  We too ignore, push aside, and make invisible aspects of our own selves.

Which aspects of ourselves have we pushed to the side?
What internal work have we chosen to ignore?
What difficult conversations have we left unspoken?
What needs have we made invisible?
Which feelings have we left unexpressed?

This is a time for counting that which has been left uncounted.  A time for numbering and naming.  On this Shabbat let us be reminded: Our work toward a desert tikkun always holds the reward of a Promised Land.

“Teach us to number our days,” declares the Psalmist, “that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

Teach us to number ourselves, we learn, that we may live lives of fullness.

Parashat Emor -- Human Experience

A few weeks ago, I opened up the text of Parashat Emor to study with Rose Kauffman-Skloff in preparation for her fifth grade d’var torah, which she delivered to the Religious School community last Sunday. Together, we read these words, which God instructed Moses to tell the Israelites “These are My fixed times, the fixed times of the Eternal One, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions” (Leviticus 23:1). Rose was wide-eyed to discover that many of the holidays she celebrates today were described in detail in the Torah. “Can you believe we’ve been celebrating these holidays for so long?”

This ancient Torah portion not only tells us when to celebrate but how to celebrate these holy days: Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. Each day has its own list of commands, reflected in their prescribed active verbs: You shall elevate, you shall eat unleavened bread, you must count, you shall bring, you shall leave, you shall observe complete rest, you shall practice self-denial, you shall make offerings, you shall rejoice, you shall live in booths.

These holy days, accented by these verbs, begin to paint a picture, in miniature, of a life fully lived and experienced. The actions of these days tell the story of our lives: We regret and we rejoice, we bring and we leave, we observe and we elevate, we eat and we live. Other Jewish holy days were added to the calendar in rabbinic times. On Tisha B’Av, we mourn and we experience loss. On Chanukah, we make light and we remember.

These holy days suggest something remarkable: that all of our human experiences—from loss to delight, from low points to high, from sickness to health—all have their place not only in an individual’s lifecycle, but also in the fabric of our communal calendar. They have been embedded in the cycle of our years since ancient times. Our tradition tells us unequivocally: No matter what life brings you, you remain in the fabric of Jewish time, and in the pattern of Jewish life.

Rose summed it up well, “Some of these holidays make you sad. On some you celebrate. Some are sort of boring.” And such is life. Each of us experiences moments of disappoint. Each of us is granted moments for rejoicing. Sometimes life rolls along, unchanged, and is overwhelmingly tedious.

Torah reminds us this week that whether we confront joy or sorrow, illness or loss, pain or healing, wellness or despair, certainty or ambiguity, or life or death, we remain in sync with the sacred rhythm of our people’s time.

In this knowledge we can take some comfort. Our life’s experiences are not ours alone, but are shared with Jewish people across the globe and through out history. As Ecclesiastes teaches, “There is a time for every season under heaven.”

Parashat Sh'mini--Strange Fire

A few years ago I was given a playlist of contemporary songs that focused on biblical themes.  The focus of the music was broad—from the irreverent to the inspired.  What was notable about the music was that it was not intended to be religious in any way.  The songs were simply illustrations that biblical images and stories weave their way into our daily lives and the art we create.  This week’s Torah Portion Parashat Sh’mini is no exception.

It’s ironic that I look forward to this Torah Portion, a portion which is, at its core, deeply troubling and quite bloody.  This Torah Portion includes the only narrative incident in all of Leviticus.  It goes like this:

Now Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered before Adonai strange fire, which God had not enjoined upon them. And fire came forth from Adonai and consumed them; thus they died at the instance of Adonai. Then Moses said to Aaron, "This is what Adonai meant by saying: Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, And gain glory before all the people." And Aaron was silent (Leviticus 10:1-3).

The story is simple.  Nadab and Abihu offer “strange fire” on the altar and God responds by consuming them in fire.  Aaron, their father, is left in stunned silence.  No explanation is given. 

Where Aaron remains reticent, Jewish commentators burst forth with explanations.  For generations, our ancestors have done back-flips trying to make sense of what Nadab and Abihu possibly could have done wrong.

I don’t love this Torah Portion for the narrative or for the traditional Jewish commentaries.  I love it for the Indigo Girls’ song “Strange Fire.”  In this song, the Indigo Girls sing:

i come to you with strange fire, i make an offering of love, the incense of my soil is burned by the fire in my blood. i come with a softer answer to the questions that lie in your path. i want to harbor you from the anger, find a refuge from the wrath.  this is a message of love. love that moves from the inside out, love that never grows tired. i come to you with strange fire.

What I love about these lyrics is simple.  They take a message of pain and anguish and quite simply, by just a few words, turn it into “a message of love.”  While Nadab and Abihu’s strange fire produced wrath, their strange fire is meant to provide “softer answers” and a “refuge from the wrath.”  This is a complete reworking of Torah!  And I delight in it.

I believe that sometimes Torah’s purpose is not to instruct, but to warn.  Why is Aaron silent?  Why does Moses’ off-putting attempt to make sense of the incident feel so incongruous?  Because this is a story in which God got it wrong.  This is a story of innocent life taken.  This is a story that is meant to evoke pain and anger.  And we are not given answers.  And it is not made right.  Torah leaves us with two choices:  To justify God’s actions by blaming Nadab and Abihu, or to learn from the injustice of the act.

Ancient Jewish commentators choose the former.  The Indigo Girls choose the latter. 

We have this power too.  What messages will we draw from our Holy Texts?  Will they be messages of blame or messages of love?  Will they be justifications or new paths?  What is the purpose of Torah in our lives? 

Will we continue to condemn the strange fire or embrace it?

Parashat Vayikra--Hearts Tied Together

This week, we begin reading Leviticus, the third book of the Torah.  In the book’s first portion, Parashat  Vayikra, we are introduced to the organized sacrificial system of the ancient Israelites.  It is true that we today are far removed from the blood and guts of Leviticus in our daily lives, and it is also true that we are deeply connected to many of Leviticus’ thoughts about community.

The sacrificial system was predicated on an almost unbelievable premise:  There was only one sanctioned place in the world at which Israelites were allowed to offer sacrifices to God.  These sacrifices represent our ancestors’ primary form of worship, and so it is significant that in their entire known world they were only able to commune with God in one place:  The Temple.  The ancient Temple, which stood in Jerusalem, functioned as the center of Israelite life in the ancient world.  (And while we know today that there were quite a few renegade sacrifice sites in existence, the intent of Leviticus is clear:  In order to form a religious community, the people had to gather together together!).

In fact, the nineteenth century’s Rabbi Shmuel David Luzzatto (or Shadal) teaches that the main purpose of the sacrificial system was to build community.  He writes:

The Torah commands that each person should not build his own place for sacrifice, but rather that everyone should offer sacrifices in one singular place.  The purpose of this is not to belittle the act of sacrificing, but rather, it is for the good of the nation, for success, and in order to perfect our [communal] values.  Since there was only one Temple for the whole nation, everyone would gather to one place and, as a result, their hearts would be tied together in fellowship and they would be always as one group.

Shadal paints a beautiful image of community in his teaching.  His words allow us to understand the sacrificial system not as something that separates us from our ancestors, but rather as something that connects us.

We all are in search of meaning and community.  We too are looking to have our hearts “tied together in fellowship” with others.  As our world grows even bigger, this need starts even deeper.

For our ancestors, community was built into the system.  Do you want to worship God?  Go to the Temple!  Do you want to interact with other Israelites?  Go to the Temple.  With no options, the community was built and sustained.

Today, our choices are more varied.  Community is certainly not a given.  We have to choose our temple.  And then we have to choose to walk in its doors.  And then we have to choose to be active members of its community.  And, only with our work, do we come to find our hearts tied in fellowship.

This week, we are reminded by a nineteenth century rabbi that our efforts to build and connect are worthwhile.  Beyond even our own needs, we were intended to be “as one group.”  When we gather for learning and prayer, or for connecting and celebrating, we live out our ancestors’ legacy.  We take our place in the ever extending line of the Jewish people.  Shadal teaches this is our purpose.  It may also be our deliverance.

Parashat Ki Tissa--Reacting

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Ki Tissa, when God sees the Israelites building a golden calf and worshiping it, God is filled with anger and wants to destroy the stiffnecked people (Exodus 32:9).  Moses pleads with God, saying “Adonai, do not let Your anger blaze forth against Your people!” (Exodus 23:11).  In this first snapshot, God seems to be out of control and Moses seems to be the image of calm.

Interestingly, God is easily swayed by Moses.  God not only backs down, but “renounces the punishment” (Exodus 32:14) that had been previously articulated.

On the surface, these verses tell a story of God’s irrationality and Moses’ sage leadership.  But, this only tells part of the story.

God may have been initially enraged and even dreamed up some pretty elaborate responses to the Israelites’ betrayal, but God never goes through with them (Think of the parent who finds the child destroying a wall or table with markers).

What is interesting is what happens next.  Moses goes down the mountain, sees the people dancing around their golden calf, becomes “enraged,” smashes the tablets of law that God gave him on Mount Sinai, burns up the golden calf, and makes the people drink the ashes mixed in water (Exodus 32:19-20).

This is not exactly the reasonable Moses presented a few verses earlier!  What happened to empathizing with the people who had just emerged from slavery?  What happened to reasonable leadership and learning?

In the end, I think the real lesson of this parashah lies neither in the reaction of God or nor of Moses, but in the contrast between the two.

God initially reacts with anger and plans all sorts of responses to the people’s infractions, but in the end, God is able to hear words of reason, rethink the position, and act appropriately.  For me, what is remarkable in this account is the pause that God takes.

God waits.

God’s initial (justified?) reaction is anger, but instead of simply reacting, God asks for advice and remembers the people (who God ultimately loves deeply).

We think of our own lives: This story has no hastily fired off email dripping with rage before the author could reconsider, no voicemail message left in anger before the speaker could calm their voice.

In the end, God is the picture of grace.

And, Moses?

Well, Moses is able to look at God and see all the appropriate ways to react.  But, when faced with the people’s disloyalty to him (and that must have been what Moses imagined as he walked down the mountain), Moses lets loose.  Moses is unable to control his own rage and, in fact, enacts his own destructive plot against the people.

Moses was a well-reasoned adviser, but a violently impulsive leader.

In our own lives, I am sure each of us can see ourselves reflected both in God and Moses’ reactions.  There are moments when we are able to give reasoned advice, only to turn around and act irrationally on our own accord.  And, there are moments when we may lose control initially and are able to reign in ourselves enough to react with calm.

What I love about this week’s portion is that it is understood that sometimes we may lose control.  We are human and we get angry.  We lose our cool.  We blow up.  This week’s Torah portion is a lesson in managing these very human and natural reactions.  This is the stuff of life.

Ultimately, we are, all at once, created in the image of God, students of Moses, and descendants of those who built the calf.

Parashat Tetzaveh and Purim--Costumes

In the opening verses of this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Tetzaveh, God says to Moses, “Make sacral vestments for your brother Aaron, for dignity and adornment. Next you shall instruct all who are skillful, whom I have endowed with the gift of skill, to make Aaron's vestments, for consecrating him to serve Me as priest” (Exodus 28:2-3).  While studying these verses with two TIOH fifth graders in preparation for their D’var Torah, I asked them the question, “What are vestments?”

One student quickly answered, “A disguise!”

I responded, “Ok, good.  And what’s another word for disguise?”

“A costume!” they replied emphatically.

The words “disguise” and “costume” were not the first words that come to my mind when considering priestly vestments.  But, these associative definitions have stuck in my mind the past few weeks and have been insistently whispering an important link between this Torah portion and the holiday of Purim, which begins Saturday night.

There is a clear link in the Torah between the decorations made for mishkan or the Tabernacle (meant to be the dwelling place for God), which were described in last week’s parashah, and the vestments made for the priests in this week’s portion.  Indeed, our Torah scrolls of today are dressed in much the same way as the ancient priests were, thereby connecting text to people to God.

And what if all of these vestments are simply disguises?  Costumes masking something underneath?  What, we might wonder, is being hidden?

Jewish mystics teach that the stories of the Torah are a disguise for the Torah’s deeper meanings, the Torah’s essential truths.  The stories, say the kabbalists, make Torah more accessible and comprehensible.  Might the same be true for the decorations we use to cover sacred space, holy people, and sacred text?  Might the costumes we drape upon them allow us to better access and understand their true power and connection to the divine?

We think now of ourselves.  Purim is upon us.  We are busy dusting off costumes and planning our own disguises.  The Purim masks we wear do not only draw attention to silly outer costumes, but also to what we are hiding underneath.  Might these costumes, in all their silliness, point to something much truer underneath?

The disguises we wear on Purim might be a far cry from the vestments of priests and Torah, not to mention the craftsmanship of the mishkan, but they make accessible the same inner truth:  Dwelling right beneath the surface of each one of us is a divine spark that animates our life.  Burning within each one of us is a soul that has the capacity for deep wells of compassion and kindness.  The costumes we wear on Purim can barely conceal our inner resources of healing and power, of grief and joy, of resilience and flexibility.  

Sometimes when we dress up something seemingly ordinary in something seemingly extraordinary, we are invited to see that thing differently.  To see it anew.  This is the fun and power for Purim.  Disguise yourself well.  And enjoy the costume.

Parashat Terumah--If you build it...

“If you build it, he will come.” Not words of Torah, of course, but an unforgettable quote nonetheless, from the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams.” Yes, this was about a baseball diamond in a corn field. But, couldn’t it be midrash, as well?

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Terumah, “Adonai spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him. ...And let them make Me a mishkan, a sanctuary, that I may dwell amongst them. ...And deposit in the Ark the tablets of the Pact which I will give you’” (Ex 25:1-2, 8, 16).

Commentators note: The text does not say “let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in it.” Rather the text reads, “that I may dwell amongst them.” Why is it that when the Israelites build a sanctuary of their own free will, they are told that God dwells amongst them? (and not in it)

In “Field of Dreams,” Chicago White Sox players from the early twentieth century show up to play baseball when an Iowa farmer builds them a baseball diamond. “If you build it, he will come.”

In Torah, God shows up amongst the people when they build God a sanctuary. (A loose connection here, I know, but indulge me!)

Here in the TIOH Religious School, we have been building a sanctuary of sorts, as well. Together (parents, students, teachers, clergy, and staff) have been dreaming about what our community can be and making our dreams into reality.

Our Sunday morning flagpole is filled with prayer, songs, blessings, and joy. Families join together weekly for this ritual.

Our Sunday morning t’fillah (services) are meaningful and aim to connect our students with the sacred in their lives.

Our classrooms are electric. Students are engaged and active learners.

On Sunday afternoons, our Teen Program is the place to be. With a “Jew-per Bowl Halftime” party, school-wide celebrations and trips, and thought-provoking class discussions, our junior high and high school students are coming together.

We have new chuggim (elective activities) on Wednesday afternoons. From Jewish Yoga to Social Action, our students are experiencing Jewish together.

Yes, we are building. Brick by brick, our sanctuary is coming together. And, we are promised, with this construction, God will dwell amongst us.

We are all searching for meaning. Looking for ways to connect. Seeking out the holy. We need no longer search. We are building it. They too will come.

Parashat Mishpatim--Step Up/ Step Back

At the Sela Leadership Training I attended last year, we were instructed to use the “Step up/ Step back technique” in our inter-group relations.  This was one of our ground rules.  We were told explicitly: for those of you prone to listening rather than speaking, step up and consider talking more.  We were told, for those of you who usually speak first or often, step back and consider listening more.  Step up or Step back, we were reminded.

The reason why this ground rule was useful is because it called upon each of us to have a level of self-awareness.  Do I talk frequently and need to step back or am I often reticent and need to step up?  In each situation, should I step back or up?  Where to stand?

I am someone who usually listens and thinks before speaking.  I have a terrible habit of turning conversations backwards once I finally catch up enough to offer my comment.  Step up, I hear my inner voice saying often during conversations.  And on the flip side, I have strong and definitive opinions.  Step back, I have come to hear my inner voice say often during conversations.  In one individual, who knew, there could be such complexity. 

Such consideration of where and how to walk in conversations is not only a useful tool for self-development, it is also at the crux of this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Mishpatim. 

Last week, our ancestors stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, as Moses ascended the mountain.  All the people engaged in a moment of profound revelation.  This is why our people left Egypt, to enter into a new and just covenant, to encounter the sacred.  And so amidst thunder and lightning, Moses descended the mountain and recited the Ten Utterances or Commandments. 

And in this week’s parashah, the recitation continues.  Mishpatim.  “These are the rules of conduct” by which you will live your lives. 

Moses finishes reciting.  And the people proclaim, “Kol ha’d’varim asher dibeir Adonai na’aseh” “all the things that Adonai has spoken, we will do” (Exodus 24:3).  Moses then offers a sacrifice of well-being, and the people repeat themselves “Kol asher dibeir Adonai na’aseh v’nishmah,” “all that Adonai has spoken we will do and we will hear” (Exodus 24:7).  At the moment of Revelation the People choose.  Step up.  We. Will.  Do. 

At the moment of Revelation, we see our stiff-necked ancestors at their finest.  Not passive, like in the moments following the recitation of the Ten Utterances when Torah tells us the people “fell back and stood at a distance” (Exodus 20:15).  Not passive aggressive, like when the people call out, “If only we had meat to eat, we remember that fish we used to eat free in Egypt” (Numbers 11:4-5).  No this is the people at their best.  We. Will. Do.  We. Will. Step. Up.  We are active partners in this relationship. 

And, Moses?  Where is Moses in this narrative?  Moses, who has been running up and down the mountain like a spiritual ski gondola since last week.  Moses, who has spent the moments of revelation praising and pacifying, listening and repeating, doing and commanding, leading and leveraging: Where is Moses in this conversation?

This week Torah tells us: God says to Moses, “Aleih eilai ha-harah veh’h’yeh sham,” “Come up to Me on the mountain and be there” (Exodus 24:12).  Be there.  Just be.  Stop moving.  Stop doing.  Don’t ascend, don’t descend, don’t act.  Step back. 

Moses and the Israelites ultimately came into covenant, entered into the deepest of sacred relationships, in ways that were opposite to their nature.  The notoriously passive people responded to covenant by doing.  The woefully impulsive Moses responded by being.

They stepped up.  He stepped back.  And that was Revelation.

We today are wise to hear this story of covenant anew.  Experiencing God and the sacred, not to mention the rest of humanity, requires a presence of mind.  A spiritual centering.  An active choice, different for each of us, different in each moment:  Step up or Step back.

We are taught that the true moment of our people’s freedom came not at the instant they fled Egypt.  It came only at this moment, at Sinai, when they entered into covenant.  The absence of law, we are taught, is not freedom, but chaos.

“We will do and we will hear,” said the people.

“[Moses,] Come up to Me on the mountain and be.”

This is the voice of Torah in our lives.  Gently pushing us this week...to rise above our basest instincts.  We are more than chaos.  In our encounters with Torah, with the holy and with God...and most importantly, in our interactions with each other (each of us who is surely created in God’s image), we are reminded: Step up or Step back.  We live our lives in the realm of the sacred when we are self-aware enough to know how to reach out and encounter the other. 

We will do.  We will be.

Easier said than done.  The people’s misguided actions will lead them to build a golden calf.  Moses’ over-zealousness in pulling back keeps him covered in cloud and alone, oblivious to the people’s infraction.  Torah never calls on us to be perfect.  Just a little better than our instincts might tell us to be.

In that one moment, which is every moment, when an encounter of the truest nature is possible, we can do our part to make revelation possible. Step up or Step back.  And who knows what blessings we might receive.

Parashat Yitro--Back and Forthing

There are some days in which I take three trips from my home to my car before I remember everything I need.  No sooner do I have the key in the ignition then I remember my forgotten cell phone, iPod, lunch, office key, jacket.  This is the way I am in the world.  My mind is so often filled with plans and ideas three steps ahead that I have a hard time remembering what’s supposed to be in my hands at the moment.  I take comfort in the fact that there is holiness in the back-and-forthing of life.

In Genesis, Jacob falls asleep on a rock.  In the middle of the night, he awakes to find angels climbing up and down a ladder.  Commentators ask: Why up and then down?  Why moving at all?  Good questions!

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Yitro, in which our people receive the Ten Commandments (aka Decalogue, Ten Utterances, etc.) at Mount Sinai, we once again are treated to Torah’s love of back-and-forthing.  I invite you, before you read my count, to click here http://www.jtsa.edu/Conservative_Judaism/JTS_Torah_Commentary/Yitro.xml, re-read Exodus 19 from the Torah portion, and count how many times Moses goes up and down the mountain.  My tally is below:

19:3--Moses goes up the mountain
19:7--Moses goes down to mountain
19:9--Moses goes up the mountain
19:14--Moses goes down the mountain
19:16--Moses leads the people out of the camp and toward God.  They take their place at the foot of the mountain.
19:20--God comes down onto Mt Sinai and Moses goes up the mountain
19:25--Moses goes down the mountain
20:1-14--God delivers the 10 Commandments

First of all, I think it is important to say that this is not the image I have of our encounter on Mount Sinai.  My view is much more majestic.  The stuff of real myth.  With Moses on top of the mountain, with thunder and lightning, and great drama.  And, yes, in the real narrative, the fireworks and dramatics still exist, but with this odd subtext: This running back and forth from car to door before the day can start.  What’s with God and Moses?  Why not just stay still?

A few thoughts:

1. Moses in his back-and-forthing is modeling important leadership skills for us.  It is only a few parashot later that Moses ascends the mountain and stays up there again for forty days, enveloped in a cloud with God, while the people lose faith, hope, and any sense of guidance.  They break into open revolt and buil a golden calf to worship.  We often cite that part of the story in our Torah study, but how often do we check back here to Exodus 19, when Moses gets it right?  Sometimes the work of process and consensus building feels exactly like this:  Running up and down a mountain, again and again, talking, securing, easing, and explaining.  Yet, we see here, this work is sacred.  And critical.  When Moses and God skip it later on, secure in their own roles and status as leaders, they lose their people.
2. I see in this a spiritual message.  There are moments to stay up on the mountain and there are moments to come back down to our people on solid ground.  This parasha reminds us that it is in the balance between the two that we encounter the divine. 
3. There was a time in American political debate in which being “wishy washy” was viewed as a negative characteristic.  Let us remember, though, that we are a people who have never been satisfied with first impressions, initial conversations, or singular encounters.  We are a people who go back and forth, who wander, who question God, and who challenge authority.  We may be a stiff-necked people, but we have no problem with ascending and descending ladders, mountains, and deserts.  Let us take comfort in this legacy and know that the possibility to choose and choose again, to learn and learn again, to grow and grow again is always before us.

Shabbat Shalom!

Parashat Beshalah--The Long Way Around

The Talmud teaches, “There is a long way which is short and a short way which is long” (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 53b).  Yes, I think, it’s true; although, when setting off on one’s journey it’s often hard to know the difference.  I can think of times when I’ve set off on a course of action, confident that I am traveling down a short road of slim resistance, only to find myself mired in the thick of things and wondering how I got myself there in the first place.  And then there are those times, when a long view and careful planning, a tough trek anticipated ahead, is filled with sweetness and ease.  Knowing which roads we’re embarking upon, it seems to me, is the stuff of life and measurements of growth.

This week’s Torah Portion, Parashat Beshalah, begins, “Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by 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” (Exodus 13:17-18).

The Israelites had one short road ahead, which God feared would be too difficult and would cause the Israelites to complain and beg to return to Egypt.  So, God sent them the long way.  The irony of our people’s journey is that the long way was not actually any easier.  While traveling the long way, they spent years crying out to God and begging to be returned Egypt with just as much force as they did to be freed from it in the first place (Numbers 14:1-5, for example). 

So, I will be a little chutzpadik and suggest an addendum to the Talmud’s wisdom: There is a long way which is long and there is a short way which is long.  Sometimes, we’re blessed to find a long way which is short and, every once in a great blessed while, a short way which is actually short

What might we learn from this week’s Torah Portion?  A few thoughts:

1. Rachel Lewin, Head of School of the TIOH Day School, wrote a few months back about the importance of parents letting children experience the very natural process of learning something new, which can include feelings of frustration and challenge.  Rachel explained that learning how to cope with these feelings and moving through them are important life lessons.  For parents, it can seem easy enough to make a child’s long road shorter, but sometimes we find on the other end, that the short road missed the journey all together.
2. Sometimes, it is not until we have reached the end of a journey that we realize we have traveled the long way around.  It is often this realization and the lessons we have learned along the way that help us to take the shorter roads ahead.  
3. Most of all, this week’s Torah portion reminds us that our life’s pursuit should not be a search for short roads.  Long roads and 40 year journeys are a part of our historical memory.  Even the long roads that are long hold blessings and lessons along the way.  Torah’s promise to us is that God travels with us no matter which road we take or that the sacred is within us no matter how long the journey.

This is a Shabbat for choosing new journeys and reflecting on the ones we have chosen.  This is a time for reorientation.  What journeys are you on?  Were they expected or no?  Have they proven long or short?  What are the blessings to be gleaned from them?

*A huge thank you to Darcy Veber for pointing out this gem of a Talmud verse to me.

Parashat Bo--Myers-Briggs

In the opening verse of this week’s Torah Portion, Parashat Bo, we learn again of the phenomenon of Pharaoh’s “hardened heart” when it comes to the Israelites and their situation (Exodus 10:1). This idea of a “hardened heart” is repeated no less than 20 times in Exodus: half of the references referring to Pharaoh having a hardened heart and half of the references referring to God hardening Pharaoh’s heart (Etz Hayim 335). This repeated phrase begs a couple questions:

• In the context of Torah, what is the role of the heart and what does it mean for a heart to be hardened?
• How can we learn from this lesson of a hardened heart today?

The role of the heart
As far as the Torah is concerned, the heart functions “as the seat of the intellectual, moral, and spiritual life of the individual” (Etz Hayim 335). Said differently, the biblical heart is understood in much the same way as our mind functions today (the role of today’s heart, the emotional center, is found in the biblical kishkes or gut).

Hardening of the heart
We come to see then that what happens to Pharaoh is not an emotional hardening, but rather an intellectual and spiritual hardening. When the Torah says that Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, it signals to us that Pharaoh has become increasingly entrenched in his own thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions. Pharaoh becomes so convinced he is right, so convinced in the unjust social order of his day, and so sure in his own reasoned justifications that he becomes unable to hear the voices of others, to see their suffering, or recognize injustice.

Lessons of today 
In studying these verses this past week, I was reminded of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (or personality test), which I first completed as a professional development tool while studying at the Hebrew Union College. One of the preference pairs on the test helps the test-taker to understand how s/he likes to make decisions: by Feeling or by Thinking. People who make decisions by Feeling “believe [they] can make the best decisions by weighing what people care about and the points-of-view of persons involved in a situation.” People who make decisions by Thinking “like to find the basic truth or principle to be applied, regardless of the specific situation involved.” As my professor explained it to me, for a Feeling decision-maker the feelings of the other person are more important than being rational and right, and for a Thinking decision-maker being right and rational is more important than sparing the feelings of others or his/her own self.

This Test comes to mind today because I see in its carefully laid-out boundaries the lessons of Pharaoh’s heart. When we harden our hearts, we allow ourselves to exist in the extremes of decision making. For the Feelers amongst us, we allow ourselves to ignore the moral universe in service to the individual in front of us. For the Thinkers amongst us, we allow ourselves to ignore the realities of the individual in service to what we have labeled as moral certitude.

The lesson of Pharaoh is this: We are responsible, always, for justice and compassion; for morality and empathy; for being right and for being kind. This dual-responsibility is what Torah, mitzvot, and Jewish ethical living are all about.  Our tradition asks us to rise above are most basic instincts.

Tests like Myers Briggs are helpful for understanding ourselves, the ways in which we make decisions, and our own tendencies toward action and reaction in this world. They are not, however, excuses to live in extremes and harden our hearts. We are reminded this week not to decide in the image of Pharaoh (who sees neither justice nor compassion), but in the image of God (who seeks always to embody both).

Parashat Sh'mot--Spiritual Exile

This week, we begin a new book of Torah.  Exodus.  Sh’mot in Hebrew.  We often speak of the famous exodus memorialized in this book.  The Exodus from Egypt, in which Moses leads the Israelites out of bondage, out of slavery, out of the Narrow Place.

But, as this book of Torah opens, there is no hint of bondage, no hint of slavery, no fear of the Narrow Land.  Rather, this week’s Torah portion begins with an exodus into Egypt, as Joseph’s brothers and their families follow his footsteps southward from Canaan.

They had no idea what they were walking into. 

And, doesn’t this story of our ancestors ring true?  That which enslaves us often creeps up unannounced…out of places of plenty, experiences of goodness, lives of fullness.  And then slowly, and without warning, we find ourselves not on some exotic adventure or frivolous vacation, but in exile.  Distanced from freedom, separated from wholeness.

To be in exile is a spiritual condition.  We are in exile when we find ourselves somehow separated from God, separated from the sacred.  We are in exile when we feel an absence of the divine in our lives. 


When we are in exile, we are spiritually marooned.  Spiritually lost.  Disconnected.

This week’s Torah portion is about experiencing exile and longing for redemption.

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The Torah tells us how the Israelites went from freedom to slavery.  It reads: “A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase” (Exodus 1:8-10).

Exile happens to us.  Without our intending it.  Without our wishing it.  Suddenly, something around us changes.  And what started as a journey to a land of plenty (good living), becomes enslavement.  A simple story.

But, Torah teaches us that exile is not a permanent condition.  Every exile holds the promise of redemption.

The Sefat Emet teaches us that Torah speaks of three different types of exile. 
1.    Imprisonment
2.    Humility
3.    Poverty

And with each of these types of exile, we are promised three different acts of redemption, for Torah teaches us that God:
1.    Brings forth the prisoners
2.    Delivers the humble
3.    Helps the needy

And we ask:  What is the meaning behind each of these types of exile?  What does it mean to be a prisoner?  What does it mean to be humbled?  What does it mean to be needy?

First—The prisoner.

The Sefat Emet teaches us that we are prisoners when we are “unable to broaden out that point of divine life that is within [us].”  We are imprisoned when we fail to recognize that there is an essential spark inside each of us.  We are imprisoned when we are unable to tap into that source of life and goodness.  We are imprisoned when we are unable to tap into its strength.

But, God brings us prisoners forth.

Second—The humble.

The humble person is a righteous person, one who need not be in exile, but who remains there selflessly.  Working to redeem others.  Moses, the Sefat Emet teaches, was one of the humble.  He himself could have been redeemed, but remained in Egypt in order to lead his people out.  And there are those of us who spend our days redeeming others.  We work tirelessly to rescue those amongst us who are lost or fallen or faltering.  We are reminded this week that this work comes at a toll.  We who exile ourselves by choice need special care.  We too must claim moments of rest, moments of freedom, moments of peace.

And, God, we are taught, delivers the humble.

And finally, the third type of exile—The needy.

“The needy,” we are taught, refers to “those lowly ones who do not yet even feel their exile.”  Yes, says the Sefat Emet, “they are in need of the greatest salvation.”  Our ancestors suffered under the cruel king’s tyranny for years without realizing they were enslaved.  It was not until that king died that the Israelites first cried out.  They moaned and called out for help.  And God heard them.  And remembered.  And saw them.

God, we are taught, helps the needy

Redemption is impossible until we recognize that we are in exile.  Until we cry out.  Until we sigh under the burden.  This is the great act of strength.  Falling into exile is passive.  Readying for redemption is active.

We are taught there is a final act of redemption, one that is due to us all.  God tells us:  “I will take you as My people” (Exodus 6:7).  No longer lost.  No longer separated.  Claimed.  Whole.  Connected.

The Sefat Emet finishes, “Something like this is true of every exile.  But more than that, all these rungs seem to exist in every person as well.  Every [person] has some inner place in which he is a free person.”

--

And now I invite you look inward.  Imagine that first cry our ancestors made.  The original sigh, which grew to a moan, and cascaded into a call, one heard by God.  Imagine the relief they felt, finally naming that which oppressed them.

And now I invite you to consider your own life.  Imagine the divine spark deep within you, your source of freedom.  Breathe into it.  Breathe out of it.

This is the first act of redemption.  This a Shabbat for claiming freedom.  All the rest is still yet to follow.  Only potentials.  Only possibilities.

Parashat Vayehi--Making Sprials

There are many elements converging together this Shabbat.  I believe these elements, which are seemingly disconnected, might actually suggest to us something new (or at least something to reflect upon) during the day of rest ahead.

A few elements worth noting:

We are coming to the end of the first day of a new calendar year.

We are one night past a fairly rare blue moon on a New Year’s Eve.

We are reading the last Torah portion in the book of Genesis.

And, with Joseph’s death at the end of the parashah, we are standing on the border between freedom and slavery in Egypt.

Remember these disconnected elements as we dive for a moment into the particulars of the Torah portion itself.

This week’s parashah begins with Jacob on his deathbed.  Jacob’s son Joseph brings his two sons Manasheh and Ephraim to their grandfather’s bedside, asking Jacob to offer a blessing over them.

As is the custom, Joseph leads the older son Manasheh to Jacob’s his right side and the younger son Ephraim to his left.  Jacob is blind by this time and Joseph helpfully arranges the boys perfectly so that Jacob would be able to easily use his right hand to bestow due honor on Manasheh, Joseph’s firstborn son.

A word about firstborn sons...

In the Tanakah, the Hebrew Bible, we are taught that the firstborn son is due quite a lot in life—his father’s blessing, a double portion of his family’s inheritance (Deut. 21:15-17), and the authority to rule over the rest of his family after his father’s death.

What a privilege...

And yet, in this week’s Torah portion, we are reminded that so-called divinely ordained privileges are often not all that they seem to be.

In this week’s parashah, Jacob intentionally crosses over his arms, laying his right hand on the younger Ephraim’s head and his left hand on the older Manasheh’s.  When Joseph seeks to correct the mistake, Jacob says, “I know, my son, I know. He too shall become a people, and he too shall be great. Yet his younger brother shall be greater than he” (Genesis 48:19).  And Jacob blesses the younger Ephraim.


Jacob is clearly sensitive to birth order, having tricked his older brother Esau out of birthright and blessing.

And at that, Jacob’s father Isaac knew a bit about superseding the so-called “natural order of things,” as he, the younger son, was granted his father’s birthright and blessing in place of his older brother Ishmael.

And why is it that Jacob is blessing the sons of Joseph at all?  Let us remember that Joseph is the eleventh of Jacob’s twelve sons.  Why is not the oldest son, Reuben, at his father’s bedside?  Jacob himself explains that it is because of Reuben’s immorality that the sons of Joseph receive Jacob’s birthright (1 Chr. 5:1).

The list continues.  King David passes over his firstborn son Adonijah in favor of  the younger Solomon. (2 Chr. 21:3).  Chosah chooses Shimri.

In the end, even God chooses to turn aside custom, claiming the Levites as priests, in place of the Israelites’ firstborn sons (Number 8:6-18).

And so, we are left with a dilemma.  What sort of a lesson are we meant to take away from this systemic undoing of what is presented as a preordained “donesss”?  That is to say, why does the Torah teach of a firstborn’s birthright, if, more times than not, this birthright is given not to the privileged older son, but to the younger son?

We are reminded of this intentional rebalancing on a weekly basis.  In the Shabbat blessing of the children, parents are called upon to say, “May you be like Ephraim and Manasheh.”  Our words flip the natural birth order, Manasheh and Ephraim, and we continually reinforce the reconstituted hierarchy of life.

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I mentioned earlier that there are a series of elements converging upon us tonight.  We are moving beyond beginnings (full moons and new years) and into the possibilities that lie ahead, at the same time we come to the end of a book of Torah.  This Shabbat is one of endings and beginnings.

Our patriarchs begin and end as well.  Ephraim begins his new life as favored son.  Manasheh ends his.  Jacob dies.  Joseph dies.  And the Israelites are poised to begin a new, not necessarily better, tenure in Egypt.

Beginnings and Endings.  Torah tells us:  At these moments, things are ever hardly what we expect them to be.  What we are told they should be.  What we want to order them to be.

Margaret Atwood writes, “Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious.  They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized.  Then, later, they spring (The Blind Assassin 232). 

Rabbi Zoë Klein told me once that a circle is a dangerous shape.  Circles continue revolving on and on, without stopping and without ever advancing.  A spiral is much healthier.  Spirals have the roundness of circles, but are ever pushing forward, ever advancing.

Maybe this is the lesson we are to learn this week.  Not just that Torah favors younger sons or that hierarchical establishments are made to be broken...but, that we have the power to change the seemingly preordained and inevitable circles of our lives.  Endings and beginnings are perfect times for making spirals.

Joseph set two sons before Jacob.  The future all lined up.  Neat and ordered.  All Jacob did was flip his hands.  Circle made spiral. 

And here we are, the moon pregnant with possibility, waxing yet again.  The 0s and 1s of 01-01-10 lined up neatly on our calendars.  All we have to do is flip our hands.  Set the spiral in motion.  Start a new book of Torah once again.

Chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek.  Be strong, be strong, and may you be strengthened.