Parashat Yitro 5769 -- Sharing Leadership & Visions of Justice

We still have a long, long way to go before we reach the promised land of freedom. Yes, we have left the dusty soils of Egypt, and we have crossed a Red Sea that had for years been hardened by a long and piercing winter of massive resistance, but before we reach the majestic shores of the promised land, there will still be gigantic mountains of opposition ahead and prodigious hilltops of injustice (“Where Do We Go from Here,” by Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Yes, last week, we stood on the shores of the Sea of Reeds, stepped in and crossed (despite our fears), and arrived safely at the other side. We sang. We drank bitter waters made sweet. We camped. We learned to eat manna from heaven.

And, this week, in Parashat Yitro the Israelites once again complain bitterly. And they are dissatisfied with their lack of water. And they are attacked by Amalek. And they fight back. And as long as Moses can hold up his arms, they prevail in their defenses against Amalek. But Moses’ arms grow heavy. And, it seems that the people will be overcome, yet. And maybe at the root of all that complaining there was truth, maybe they would not see the Promised Land? But Aaron and Hur were determined. They would not return to slavery. And so, they moved to sit on each side of Moses and support his arms. And the people did prevail. Yes, the people prevailed when Aaron and Hur stepped up. And Moses was not left to lead alone.

And I figure Moses must have been very tired by this point. He must have been tired of the complaining and fearful that he would buckle under the pressure. He must have known that he could not continue to hold up his arms alone.

And one day, Moses’ father-in-law saw Moses sitting from morning until evening with people lined up all around him. “Why are these people here,” he asked? Moses explained that whenever people had a dispute, or were seeking justice, they came to him so that he could deliver the just message of God. Yes, Moses was once again holding up his arms alone.

Moses’ father-in-law Yitro saw that this was problematic. And, he suggested a new way of leading to Moses, delegation. Yitro would help Moses. And Moses would appoint chiefs to settle small disputes amongst the people.

And I wonder: Was this only about efficiency? Was this only about delegation? Or, was there a deeper message hidden in Yitro’s words? Maybe the truth is this: Moses alone could not support the affairs of justice in his community. Yitro seems to say, justice is only possible amongst a people when the entire community is invested in it. Justice is only possible when one person stands side by side with another and holds up their arms. Justice is only possible when everyone from leaders to chiefs to people believe in its virtues.

How often do we stand alone and hold up our arms until they shake and shudder with exertion? How often do we stand alone? And how often do we seek out others to stand by our sides and help us with our efforts?

Yes, on this Shabbat, let us learn to be like Yitro. Let us be dissatisfied with singular voices of justice. Let us seek out partners to help us. Let us be catalysts of change and sources of goodness in our community.

Parashat B'Shalach 5769 -- Rebirth

This week’s Torah portion is Parashat B’Shalach, or in English, the Torah Portion in which we are “sent” or “let go” from Egypt. This is the week, after weeks of Moses declaring, “Let my people go!” that we are let go. This Shabbat is Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat on which we come to banks of the Sea of Reeds, Moses lifts his staff, and the Israelites pass through the split sea onto dry land.

Scholars and the rest of us read this magnificent story and often ask, “Yeah, but did that really split?” We like to know the details. There are documentaries that detail weather patterns and tide patterns—yes, it did take place. There are famous sermons—no, it didn’t take place. There are archaeologists—yes, it did; no it didn’t. There are careers at stake, passionate cries of historicity, and fists pounded with one word, “authenticity.” happen? Did the sea

In the middle of this debate, I shrug.

I think these are both the wrong questions and the wrong answers.

For me, the question is not, “Did the Exodus take place?” But rather, “What is the metaphor?”

You see, I don’t think our people can cross through a split Sea of Reeds and travel from slavery to freedom, without there being some intended deeper meaning. I believe this image cries out for interpretation.

And, I think this week, of my friend and colleague, Rabbi Riqi Kosovske, and others like her, who explain this Text through a radical new lens.

“This is a birth narrative,” they declare.

Yes, when the people of Israel step into the parted sea, the people who had suffered through slavery are now passing through nothing less than a birth canal. The split sea, which leads them from the confined space of Mitzraim, of Egypt or literally “the Narrow Place,” now leads them into the midbar, the desert, the wide expanse.

Then Moses held out his arm over the sea and Adonai drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night, and turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split, and the Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. (Exodus 14:21-22)

This is a birth narrative. The split sea is the birth canal. We, as a people, are reborn. From slavery to freedom. And so, the question is not “Did it happen?” But, “What does it mean?”

On this Shabbat, I invite you to ask yourself this very question. This is Shabbat Shira, a Shabbat on which any song is possible. This is Shabbat Shira, a Shabbat on which we are reborn. This is Shabbat Shira, a Shabbat on which we re-enter the world with new formed eyes and an appetite for new experiences.

In our tradition, we are born not once, but again and again through our Torah narrative. Seize this opportunity and find what you may.

Parashat Va-era 5769 -- The Power to Cry Out

My most vivid memory of my first summer at a Jewish overnight camp is sitting during services and praying with my eyes closed for the first time. For someone who so likes to be in control, looking inward was a new experience.

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Va-era, God tells Moses:

“I have now heard the cries of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am Adonai. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage.” (Exodus 6:5-6).

For me, the miracle of Exodus is not that God answered the Israelites’ cries. God had been answering cries for generations. The miracle is that the Israelites had the self-awareness to realize that they were enslaved and the strength to believe they could do something about it.

Ironically, the most important lesson I have learned in recent years is discovering how to pray with my eyes open. I have learned that prayer is not only about self-reflection, but also about seeing the world, recognizing injustice, and coming to believe I can do something about it.

“I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary judgments. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, Adonai, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I Adonai” (Exodus 6:7-8).

From Egypt, Mitzraim (literally, the “Narrow Place”), God promises the Israelites a new land, a Promised Land. Of course, there will be forty years of wandering, desert trials, and the passing of a generation before the Israelites ever touch foot on the soil of that promised inheritance. It is the awareness of the “in between,” the desert that often stands between slavery and freedom, which reminds me that nothing in life is as simple as spacious land and pledged blessings. Praying with open eyes means accepting the complexities of life. There will always be lands filled with sweetness and there will always be deserts along the way.

This week Torah reminds us that we are a people who cry out; who cry out at injustice, at oppression, at inequality, and unfairness. We are to be the people who pray with our eyes open.

Among God’s many names, we call the divine “Shomeah T’fillah,” “the One who hears prayers. Surely, we hear that name echoed in Torah this week.

Let us be reminded this week that ours is a God who cares about the suffering in our world. Let us be reminded that the path from injustice to freedom is often winding and filled with challenges, but neither of these facts excuses us from taking it. Let us be reminded that our inheritance is not only land, but also a willingness to cry out and wander.

Parashat Sh'mot 5769 -- Names and Journeys

This week we begin the book of Exodus. “Exodus,” according to the esteemed www.dictionary.com, means “a going out; a departure or emigration.” And while this is the book of “The Exodus,” meaning “the departure of the Israelites from Egypt under Moses,” it is also the book of “Exodus,” which means that as we read it, we too should imagine our own journeys, the places we are leaving, ourour migrations, (maybe even, if we’re feeling a little chutzpadik, our arrivals). departures,

And yet, this book is known by a different name in Hebrew. In Hebrew, we call this second book of the Torah, “Sh’mot,” or “Names.” The meaning of the word “name,” reports www.dictionary.com, is “a word or a combination of words by which a person, place, or thing, a body or class, or any object of thought is designated.”

This is the Book of Names and the Book of Journeys.

Is it surprising, then, that in this week’s parashah, the first in this book, we hear of both journeys and names?

The generation of Joseph has died and a new Pharaoh now rules over Egypt. Fearing the size of the Israelite people, Pharaoh persecutes and enslaves them. A Hebrew boy is born. Despite the fact that his very existence, his journey into life, is illegal; he is saved and sent down the Nile on a tiny little ark, the second journey of his life. It is not until he is rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter that he receives his first name (a veteran of journeys, but nameless until then). The Torah tells us, “She called him Moshe [pull out], explaining, "Because I pulled him out of the water" (Exodus 2:9)

Moses is first raised by his mother, who calls herself his “wet nurse,” and then is raised by Pharaoh’s daughter, who called herself “his mother.” Moses comes of age in the Pharaoh’s palace, separated from his people, never called by the name of “slave,” the title by which he should have been known.

And so, knowing what we do about names and journeys, should we be surprised that one day, after seeing an Egyptian beat an Israelite slave, Moses seems to remember that his name should have been “Israelite” and “slave”? Should we be surprised that Moses looks left and right, and then strikes and kills the Egyptian taskmaster? Should we lift an eyebrow when Moses’ memory of his birth-name and all that it inspired in him causes him to flee Egypt and travel to Midian? Yes, we seem to know already, a remembered-name often inspires a journey of one kind or another, just as a journey often inspires a new name.

One day in Midian, while tending to his father-in-law’s flock, an angel of God appears to Moses in the form of a burning bush. God knows Moses’ name and knows just how to call to him from within the bush, “Moses, Moses” (Exodus 3:4)! From the bush, God tells Moses who God is and who God hopes Moses will become: not slave, not wanderer, not child of the Egyptian palace, but redeemer of the Israelite people.

Moses responds by asking God’s name.

Why is Moses so interested in the name of the divine? Because Moses has come to know about names and journeys. God answers, elusively, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh…this shall be My name forever.” (Exodus 3:14-15). God’s name does not have a single meaning. At once, it suggests “I Am That I Am,” and “I Am Who I Am,” and “I Will Be What I Will Be.” God is both a name and a journey.

Yes, I believe this is the message we are meant to hear this Shabbat. Created b’tzelem Elohim, we too are names and journey.

On this Shabbat, as we enter into this new book of Torah, let us reflect on the names others call us, on the names we whisper to our own selves, and on the names we choose for those around us. Let us reflect on where we are, where we have been, and where we are going. On this Shabbat, our God of Being, let us live up to the name by which You call us.

Parashat Va-Y'chi 5769 -- Fear & Blessings

This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Va-Y’chi, tells of the last moments of Jacob’s life. On his deathbed, Jacob draws his son Joseph near to him and blesses Joseph’s sons. After Jacob’s passing, Joseph, the dutiful son, takes the lead in preparing his father’s body, arranging for his burial, and overseeing a mourning ceremony for him. Our Torah is touchingly articulate in its description of the care and concern Joseph shows for his father. Joseph’s honest and poignant expressions of mourning are directly contrasted by his brothers’ reactions to their father’s death. Instead of pointing to their grief and sadness, the Torah tells us “Joseph’s brothers, seeing that their father was dead, now said ‘Perhaps Joseph [still] bears us enmity and intends to repay us for all the harm that we inflicted upon him’” (Genesis 50:15). Joseph’s brothers respond to their father’s death with fear.

What prompted such a reaction?

Midrash Tanhuma suggests the following: "What did [the brothers] see that made them afraid? As they were returning from burying their father, they saw that Joseph turned off the road and went to look at the pit into which his brothers had cast him.Upon seeing this, they said, 'He still bears a grudge in his heart. Now that our father is dead, he will make his hatred of us felt.' But in fact Joseph's motive was a pious one — he wanted to utter a blessing for the miracle wrought for him in that place” (Va—Yehi 17).

This past week, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing a provocative d’var torah by Rachel Timoner, a fifth year rabbinical student at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. In her d’var torah, Rachel cited this midrash and asked poignant questions about, based on her reading of this midrash, suggested that we must consider our own reactions to our world today. She asked us to consider what we might see while looking into “the pit.” Inspired by Rachel, I am thinking:

I, like each of you, have been reading the news these past weeks with my eyes open wide. We are all shaken by the situation in Gaza, the economic crisis, and the growing job loss.

Despite these realities, I believe each of us is still called to answer a critical question: Who will I be in this world?

Will I be like Joseph’s brothers? Will I be continually incited by fear and anxiety? Will I look out at the world and assume sinister motives? Will I become paralyzed by worry? Will I become stagnant? Will I remain mired in conflict? Will I give into my own feelings of jealousy or inadequacy?

Or, will I be like Joseph? Will I look out at the world and see blessings? Will I look at the most challenging parts of my life and find meaning? Will I search for the capacity to forgive? Will I find the strength to honor others? Will I dedicate myself to growth and healed relationships?

This week we read the final Torah portion in Genesis. Next week, a new story begins. Exodus. This is a story of slavery and redemption, of leadership and God’s presence, of pain and of joy. This is life. We cannot often affect what comes to us. But, we can affect how we react to what arrives.

Will we be Joseph or will we be his brothers?

The choice is up to each of us.

“I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life!" (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Parashat Va-Yeshev & Chanukah 2009 -- Our Inner Light

Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook teaches:

Everyone must know and understand that within us burns a candle and no one’s candle is identical with the candle of another and there is no human being without a candle. So everyone must know and understand that one is obligated to work hard to reveal the light of one’s candle in the public realm for the benefit of the many. One needs to ignite one’s candle and make of it a great torch to enlighten the whole world.

During our TBS Religious School Family Chanukah Program, we talked at length about the importance of sharing one’s inner light, especially during Chanukah. As you know, Chanukah begins this year on the night of December 21, which also happens to be the longest night of the year. During Chanukah, which falls during the darkest time of the year, it is our responsibility to shed light! We are taught, “pirsum ha’nes,” we are taught to publicize or share the miracle of Chanukah by placing chanukiot in the windows of our homes. In this way, people who walk or drive by our windows will learn of the miracle of Chanukah.

Let us allow ourselves to be challenged this Chanukah. It is not enough for us only to display our chanukiot and believe that we have fulfilled the mitzvah of pirsum ha’nes in the fullest sense. I believe that, along with the flames of our chanukiot, we have a moral responsibility to share the light that each one of us has within us. HaRav Kook teaches, “One needs to ignite one’s candle and make of it a great torch to enlighten the whole world.” Our world certainly needs our light!

This week’s Torah portion is Va-Yeshev. In it, we learn of Joseph’s failed attempt to share his inner light with is brothers. Joseph, youthful and self-involved, tells his brothers about his dreams, in which he imagines himself as a binding sheaf in the field, standing upright, with his brothers’ sheaves bowing low to him. Joseph’s brothers are offended by this dream. They conspire to kill him and then, with so-called mercy, throw him into a pit and sell him as a slave to Midianite traders, instead.

What does the intersection of these ideas have to teach us? What does our imperative to share our Chanukah lights have in common with a Torah story about boastfulness and its bitter end? The link, I believe, comes with the intention. On Chanukah, we are not instructed to share our light for our own gain or betterment, as Joseph sought to share his light. No, we are asked to share our lights for the betterment of the world.

We share our lights for the betterment of our world when we engage in the three fundamental acts of Jewish life: Torah, Avodah, G’milut Chasadim, or study, prayer, and acts of loving kindness. On this Chanukah, I pray that we will all find time for each of these. May our own lights be made brighter and may our small flames merge together to create a great light over the entire world.

Parashat Va-Yetzei 5769--Einstein and Religion

I am currently reading the book Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer. The book was a gift from my father-in-law, a mathematician, and I find myself searching within its pages for clues about how something so deeply essential to me, my Jewishness, affected one of the greatest minds of past generation. As an educator, I am drawn particularly to the experiences that inspired Einstein’s youthful “religious paradise” (as Einstein himself called it).

In this week’s Torah portion, Va-Yeitzei, we read of our ancestor Jacob’s own youthful encounter with God. After stealing his brother’s birthright and fleeing his home, Jacob finds himself on his own quest to define his life. In this week’s parashah, Jacob arrives at a place unknown to him. He stops for the night, rests his head, and dreams of a ladder stretching up to the heavens, with angels ascending and descending. The Torah tells us that Jacob sees God on a journey, with a stone placed underneath his head. We can easily imagine the piercing darkness of the ancient night sky, ablaze with billions of stars. Is it any coincidence that Jacob saw God lying on the very dirt of our planet?

I have come to learn that Einstein, as a young boy, was also deeply affected by the natural world. We learn, “The pure joy of Nature entered into the heart of the boy, a feeling that is usually foreign to the youthful inhabitants of cities of dead stone. Nature whispered song to him, and at the coming of the spring-tide infused his being with joy, to which he resigned himself in happy contemplation” (Jammer 17, quoting Moszkowski, Einstein the Searcher). Einstein, like Jacob, opened himself to the whispers of the natural world and from them tapped into the Divine breath that animates all.

The story of Einstein’s youthful religiosity, though, is not as simple as a boy loving nature. What inspired a religious awakening in Einstein was a series of encounters; encounters with music, with nature, and with religious studies (Jammer 18). As a young adult, Einstein refused to become bar mitzvah. While he owned a set of tefillin, he did not regularly use them. There is no record of him ever attending services or participating in synagogue life (Jammer 26-27). And yet, contrary to what many believe, Einstein believed that religion was, indeed, connected inextricably to his work in the world; as he explained, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” (Jammer 31, quoting Einstein “Science and Religion”).

As a young boy, Einstein never saw angels on a ladder, ascending and descending. Throughout his life, Einstein challenged normative Jewish beliefs and traditions, and yet, Einstein, through metaphor and allegory, did believe in God and expressed his own Jewishness (Jammer 48).

Some of us, like Jacob, can point to a single radical moment or series of events in our lives, through which we come to know God. Others of us, like Einstein, struggle our entire lives, weaving together disparate experiences, which help us to understand our own place in the universe. Both, I believe, are journeys worth celebrating.

This week I am reminded that the Jewish people are colorful and varied. There is room within our ranks for Jacobs, Einsteins, and the rest of us. On this Shabbat, I invite you to consider your own (ongoing) exploration of God and Judaism. It is, I believe, not only what we see and believe, but also that which we don’t see and reject, which comes to define our spiritual selves. Let us open ourselves up to the totality of experience. Who knows what we might yet discover?

P.S. - If you want to read Einstein and Religion too, let me know. I’d love to gather a small group together to discuss the book over lunch.