Shabbat Akharei Mot/Kedoshim 5786

Shabbat Akharei Mot Kedoshim 5786:
Be Holy (Like a Pharisee) 
(Pharisees), [literally: “those who are separated” from self-indulgence, as will be explained, or “those who practice self-restraint”]. – R Moshe ben Nakhman
 This Shabbat is the first after the 78th observance of the establishment of the modern state of Israel. Balancing a fine line between my own feelings and the far more complicated ones of my family members in Israel, I sent, unironically, a “happy 78th Israel Independence day” note, and received back the short and pained “78 yes, happy no.” 

“This is not what we meant,” said my Israeli great aunt Rina already twenty years ago. She was one of the young Jews chased away from their European homes in the 1930s who had the resilience to turn their homelessness into a crusade for Jewish dignity among the nations, and sought co-existence and equal respect with her Palestinian neighbors. But “this is the meaning of our destiny” say the Israeli Jewish fascists who seek to eradicate Palestinian presence in the ancient land of Canaan. Both can quote the Torah to justify their sense of how Jews must act.  

It is neither true nor ethical that our opinions about Israel must be the base upon which we judge our communities and each other; but the more subtle truth is that our communities will not survive if we do not develop a Jewish ethical opinion about Israel that is genuinely rooted in Torah and Jewish teaching. 

“It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it” (Proverbs 3.18) we are told about our Torah – our mysterious, maddening, incomprehensible and incomparable Torah. Sometimes that means that despite any misgivings we may feel justified in having, we are still willing to engage with it. 

This Shabbat we are reading a double parashah which includes the famous command קדושים תהיו כי קדוש אני ה’ אלהיכם “be holy as I HaShem am holy” (Lev. 19.2). But even the devil can quote Scripture, we know; because the Torah also has within it that which seems to justify the massacre of innocents as long as they are not the people of Israel, it can seem useless to engage with it. For that reason, many Jews in the West have turned away from Jewish teachings and toward the tenets of Western civilization as a base for their ethics (ironically those ethics are derived from Jewish sources as well as the later Christian ones also echoed there). 

For those of us who understand that lived Torah is far more complex, we who are still holding on and insisting that there is life here, there is – always – learning here as well. In the twelfth century the Catalonian Rabbi Moshe ben Nakhman, the Ramban, addressed our problem precisely: one can follow the letter of the law while sacrificing its spirit upon the altar of self-interest and self-gratification. For this reason, the Ramban said, HaShem commands us to be holy. 

in the Torah of the Kohanim [Leviticus] I have seen it mentioned without any qualification, saying: “Be self-restraining.” Similarly, the Rabbis taught there: “And ye shall sanctify yourselves, and be ye holy, for I am Holy. Just as I am Holy, so be you holy…” And in my opinion, this abstinence is … the self-control mentioned throughout the Talmud, which confers upon those who practice it the name of P’rushim (Pharisees), [literally: “those who are separated” from self-indulgence, as will be explained, or “those who practice self-restraint”]. – R Moshe ben Nakhman, commentary on Leviticus 19.2 

The Ramban explains that you shall be holy is the meta-message of the Torah; that after all the specific mitzvot have been observed, one must ensure that the overall effect of one’s acts are “right and good” (Deut. 6.18). This, for Ramban, is the meaning of “self-restraint”; it includes both the Jewish traditional ethic of compromise and  also that of “going beyond the line of justice”, for example by not insisting on one’s rights just because one has them, if ceding part of one’s case might bring about a better, more righteous result. In this system, greed is not good. 

Be holy. Make sure that the details add up to righteousness. This is the ultimate Jewish stance, and it cannot be entirely codified because the perfect system is one that makes room for change, mistakes, and imperfection. It depends upon a sense that there is a meta-message, an overarching truth that all our acts must be measured by. The Prophet Isaiah said it best:וַיִּגְבַּ֛הּ ה’ צְבָא֖וֹת בַּמִּשְׁפָּ֑ט וְהָאֵל֙ הַקָּד֔וֹשׁ נִקְדָּ֖שׁ בִּצְדָקָֽה HaShem is exalted through justice; the Holy One is sanctified through righteousness. (Isaiah 5.16) 

One cannot legislate for, or against, every eventuality; a living community is one which shares a common sense of what our tradition calls holiness. It is in whether we as a community are able to carry out the definition of holiness as our tradition teaches it: to lift up the fallen, to help bring healing to the sick, to clothe the naked and care for the vulnerable.  Regardless of what the state of Israel does and how we feel about it, this is what our community must be about; to base our belonging on whether we agree about Israel is to refuse the challenge of how to be holy.  

it is a mitzvah to support holiness where we can, and it is a mitzvah to give in honor of a beloved one’s memory. On this week of, unfortunately, Israeli Jewish oppression of Palestinians, you can support the cause of righteousness in the land of Promise for two peoples:
House of Hope
Hand in Hand
Rabbis for Human Rights
 

Shabbat of Pesakh 5786: That Matzah on Our Back

מָזְגוּ לוֹ כוֹס שֵׁנִי….מַתְחִיל בִּגְנוּת וּמְסַיֵּם בְּשֶׁבַח

They pour the second cup, and begin with the disgrace of our ancestors, ending with glory (Mishnah Pesakhim 10.4)

1. They pour the first cup….and recite the blessing for the day

2. They bring unleavened bread, lettuce, and haroset…they bring the Pesakh lamb

3. They pour the second cup, and the talk begins with disgrace (or lowly status) of our ancestors, and concludes with glory. We consider the Torah verse “my ancestor was a wandering Aramean”

4. They pour the third cup and recite the prayer after eating

5. The fourth cup: Hallel is recited

This version of the Passover celebration, the earliest we have, is dated to the Second Temple period, during the Persian, then Greek, then Roman, occupation of Israel. Perhaps the most obvious aspect of this description is that the entire evening is organized around four cups of wine, and each cup has a text or discussion topic attached to it. The discussion is central to the Seder because the event was based upon the Greco-Roman symposium; quite often, the discussions that took place were triggered by foods or acts that were part of the ritual meal.

What is unlike any other symposium of which we know is the topic to be discussed after the second cup: g’nut, “disgrace (or lowly status) of our ancestors”; as it is said, “once we were slaves, now we are free”. The Haggadah preserves this as the origin story of the Jewish people: we began as slaves. 

Although we learn that it is the great mitzvah of Pesakh to see ourselves as going out of Egypt just as our ancestors did, on this Pesakh, it is difficult to feel free. Even more, it is difficult to imagine ourselves in the place of the oppressed, for, as terrible as it is to recognize, our people is now an oppressor. It is so painfully difficult to confront the reality of Israeli persecution of Palestinians that there are those among us who would prefer to walk away from the entire exercise of Jewish identity and call it meaningless.

Yet there is something that rings true about the ancient message, and, often, the key to healing lies in the wound itself. We are not slaves to another people in these days, perhaps, but we are in disgrace: Jews are embarrassed before the entire world. We, the people who gave the world the idea of laws that protect the weak and free the captive; we as a people have not upheld our own teaching. We as a people have made a mockery of Jewish ethics and a joke of Jewish justice.

As hard as it is to remain human in this situation, we deserve the same grace that we would give any other sinner. So let us ask, compassionately: what could possibly have caused this people to betray its path so tragically? this people has suffered terribly for generation upon generation. Too often helpless, we have seen those we love hurt or killed, that we have built destroyed. An abused child may grow up to hurt others because of the unhealed injury in their own soul. Is it so strange that Jews with power not only are corruptible like any other people with power, but that we should, on some subconscious level, seem to be bent on punishing a people that reminds us, too much, of our own painful helplessness in the past?

There is a Hasidic teaching which intuits what modern psychology can validate: individuals hate most in others that which reminds us of the part of ourselves we cannot accept. To be vulnerable, helpless, and terrified is agonizing; to be reminded of that time in our own past is insupportable.

Yet this is what we must face: we were helpless and abandoned. This is the meaning of the g’nut, “disgrace”, of the ancient text. This is the key to the entire experience: if the mitzvah is to see ourselves as going out of slavery, then our freedom is from our own past scars. We are not free until we cease to act out of our own past hurt. We are not free until we can love, forgive, learn, and live freely – no matter what has enslaved us in the past. We are not free until we stop carrying that unrisen dough on our backs.

May this Pesakh be liberating for us all, and may we find the courage to follow the path toward healing.

Shabbat HaGadol: Leaving Egypt

בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (שמות יג), וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר, בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה ה’ לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרָיִם

In each and every generation a person must view himself as though he personally left Egypt, as it is stated: “And you shall tell your child on that day, saying: It is because of this which HaShem did for me when I came forth out of Egypt” (Exodus 13:8) – Mishnah Pesakhim 10

On Shabbat HaGadol we are standing at the edge of the desert, about to leave Egypt. At this moment, all we know is what we are leaving: a form of slavery. There are too many ways in which we escape the meaning of this moment. By imaging the future we avoid thinking about the present; by worrying and planning we distract ourselves. But this is not the mitzvah.

The mitzvah – the religious obligation – is to immerse ourselves in the transitional moment of leaving Egypt. In ancient Israel the threshhold is a highly significant place, and in Jewish law it is an important border between two different realities that is nevertheless difficult to define. The very first subject of the Talmud is to define when day turns to night, and it takes pages and pages to consider. Our ancestors put amulets in the doorway to guard our going out and our coming in; we echo that act with every mezuzah we affix. 

If change is difficult, the first step into change is momentous. Most of us avoid it by any means possible. You don’t leave the bad situation, you try again – because as it is said, “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know”.

It is an evil that we have come to see as acceptable; this is what the divine urge is always  prompting us to leave behind. In any form of slavery, external control is key; one is subordinate to a structure, not of one’s choosing, but which comes to dominate every aspect of one’s life. To leave it is to leave one’s life, as one knows it; in a way, to die and be reborn. Perhaps this is why we tell the story in spring. 

We do have some potential comfort: we can choose to take this step together. We can hold each other’s hands and face the wilderness. For the length of our history we have found some comfort in that possibility, even as we have faced all kinds of unknowns. The problem is that some of us keep trying to go back to Egypt, and pulling the rest of us with them.

וַיֹּאמְר֖וּ אִ֣ישׁ אֶל־אָחִ֑יו נִתְּנָ֥ה רֹ֖אשׁ וְנָשׁ֥וּבָה מִצְרָֽיְמָה

And they said to one another, “Let us head back for Egypt.” (Numbers 14.)

Because it’s not all singing and dancing in joy after crossing the Sea and eluding certain death. There is terror in the unknown and undefined reality that will be confronted when we take that first step past the threshhold of the known. It’s why a toddler wants to bring a favorite toy on the first day of school; why good luck charms and good luck rhythms mean so much to us; and it’s why the golden calf was created.

What are we to imagine, in the thought of ourselves literally leaving Egypt, if not that we are – we too, we are also always – constantly on the precipice of the unknown, and therefore, can we understand that we are constantly at risk of creating a golden calf. The little golden bull is easy to laugh at when we encounter the story, but we should be sobered up when we remember that thousands of our people killed, or were killed, by our own people as a result.

What could possibly make us seek to kill each other? What could cause us to destroy our own community, and in so doing, our only strength and support in the wilderness? The golden calf incident seems a form of delusion safely far away from us, but let’s consider the question from the other direction: if it makes us kill each other, it reeks of idolatry. 

Idolatry, then, is the constant threat confronting us in the territory of the unknown. This is not a past nor settled problem; this is the constant challenge, in every generation. Idolatry cannot be defined by its artifacts, but by its effects. It causes the sundering of community. It abrogates all that we live by (“do not murder” for example, in the original case). This is the path back to Egypt, which we are commanded never to take.

וְלֹֽא־יָשִׁ֤יב אֶת־הָעָם֙ מִצְרַ֔יְמָה… ה֙’ אָמַ֣ר לָכֶ֔ם לֹ֣א תֹסִפ֗וּן לָשׁ֛וּב בַּדֶּ֥רֶךְ הַזֶּ֖ה עֽוֹד

HaShem has warned you, “You must not go back that way [to Egypt] again.” (Deut. 17.16)

A traumatized people may understandably, inevitably, make an idol of certainty to cling to. We make an idol out of halakhah when we take our perfectly functional mitzvah system and twist it out of recognition, creating insanely strict rules of kashrut or Jewish identity (intermarriage, gender expression, conversion) that destroy more than it nurtures. Today it is the modern State of Israel, more poignantly because for many secular Jews it has been the object of their worship for generations of disaffection from organized religious community. 

Alas, today it is the State of Israel which is our idolatry, our enslavement, our distraction from uncertainty, the bar by which we judge and even kill each other. This is the meaning of the death of Rachel Corrie in 2003. This is the reason for the killing of friendships, of communities, of belonging. This is the cause of the abrogation of every Jewish ethic in the occupation and oppression and persecution of Palestine.

Tellingly, when our ancestors recall the wandering in the wilderness they remember it as a time of blessing:

כֹּ֚ה אָמַ֣ר ה’ זָכַ֤רְתִּי לָךְ֙ חֶ֣סֶד נְעוּרַ֔יִךְ אַהֲבַ֖ת כְּלוּלֹתָ֑יִךְ לֶכְתֵּ֤ךְ אַֽחֲרַי֙ בַּמִּדְבָּ֔ר בְּאֶ֖רֶץ לֹ֥א זְרוּעָֽה׃ 

Thus said HaShem: I accounted to your favor the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride—how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. (Jeremiah 2.2)

On this Shabbat HaGadol, we are summoned to imagine ourselves leaving the slavery of certainty which is Egypt for the uncharted and uncertain future. We are challenged once again this year to follow love into the wilderness, to guard our steps with righteousness guided by the mitzvot that offer us a path toward tikkun – for ourselves and for our people. All we have to do is leave behind us everything that closes our hearts and makes us feel safe.

If it causes human suffering, it’s not the path of HaShem.

If it abrogates the mitzvot, it’s not Judaism.

If it closes the heart, it’s idolatry, and you’re still in Egypt.

Shabbat VaYikra: Calling It

וַיִּקְרָ֖א אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר יְהֹוָה֙ אֵלָ֔יו מֵאֹ֥הֶל מוֹעֵ֖ד לֵאמֹֽר׃ 

יהוה called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying (Lev. 1.1)

Vayikra is the first word of our parasha, and of the third book of the Torah, called Leviticus in English.  It comes after the customary gap in the Torah scroll of several blank lines which serve to separate book from book.  Suddenly, out of intertextual nothingness, vayikra – G*d calls to Moshe, and speaks. This is the first verse of the third book: ויקרא אל משה וידבר ה אליו Vayikra el-Moshe vayedabber HaShem eylav. 

This literally means, “he called to Moses, and HaShem spoke to him”.  Who is the one who called?  To “call”, it seems, is not necessarily to “speak”, or even, perhaps, to communicate.   Since the text refers to G*d in conjunction with the second verb, shall we assume, as translators do, that the first verb also refers to G*d?  How else might we interpret it?  Who, or what, called, and for what purpose?  

The verse uses two verbs: “called, and…spoke.”  In the creation account there is a similar pairing of verbs. In Genesis 1:3, G*d says “let there be light”:  vayomer Elohim yehi or. And then, in contrast, “G*d called the light ‘day’, vayikra elohim la’or yom”.  That which already is, is called, comes fully into being by the simple – and profound – act of naming it.  “G*d saw that the light was good…G*d called the light day” (Genesis 1.4-5).  The first earthling, the adam, reflects that power as it names all the animals in Genesis 2.5, using the same word, vayikra.  In both these instances, naming is the act of definition which gives a final reality to the creation:  the light’s creation is complete when it is called “day”, and the animals, too, are completed when they are called by their names.  

We, too, feel the need to be named in order to fully assert our existence. 

For Jewish tradition, to “call something by its name” is an act of empowerment.  So, perhaps, to give a name to one’s fear helps to control it.  Certainly, to give a name to one’s child, in Jewish tradition, is a loving and hopeful “wishing” of traits upon the child, a way to transmit values and express the depth of family ties.  To give a name is to give of oneself in the process; it is the first step toward entering into relationship with the named.

In our parashah, something is calling to Moses to name and thus bring fully into being that which is being born. The Israelites were in a chaos not dissimilar to that of creation; having left Egypt, we found ourselves in an undefined place and time. Now at the beginning of the book of VaYikra, the mishkan has been built, the covenant has been enacted, and in these two significant ways our ancestors bring order to the tohu vavohu, the unordered universe of their lives, just as G*d does at the very beginning of time. “Before every act of revelation,” our tradition teaches in a book of legends called Sifra, “G*d would call ‘Moses, Moses!’ as at the burning bush.  It was an expression of affection and of urgency.  And each time Moses would respond, ‘Here I am’.”

In these days of chaos and undefined reality, how are we being called? What is in need of being named? If we are living through a time of profound transition, what is being born?

Vayikra:  who, or what, is calling?  In a Torah scroll, the word vayikra is written with a smaller alef at the end; classic commentaries see in this a reflection of the humility of Moshe, who wrote the alef small as an expression of his own sense of unworthiness in the relationship with G*d.  

Humility is, of course, necessary if we are to stay aware of the nuances, the shadows and unrevealed corners of our unfolding reality. We are, certainly, a small alef compared to the Source of Life that we reflect.

How else might we interpret this small, shy alef?  Perhaps in the sense of the incompleteness of our understanding –  what might we “hear” as the voice of G*d calling us?  Most of us are not so lucky as to hear a voice from G*d clearly and distinctly telling us what path to take to solve our dilemmas and make the correct decisions.  Though we might harbor a sense of conviction on this or that ethical issue, most of the time these days we are far from any sense of light and clarity, of order, for our lives and our choices.

This small alef is, for us as well as Moses, a hint of the imperfect relationship we experience with our lives – with each other, with ourselves and with whatever we might call the greater whole of which we are a part. We are no where near occupying the full potential of our lives – but each of our lives is a promise of that potential. Each of us is a small part of the whole – yet a necessary part, even as the alef is a necessary part of spelling the word “call”. 

We are, each of us, a necessary part of naming the reality toward which we, as a kehillah kedoshah,  a holy community, walk. May we find our strength with each other as we go.

Shabbat VaYakhel-Pekudey:

“‘Where is the dwelling of G*d?’ This is the question with which the Rabbi of Kotzk surprised a number of learned scholars who happened to be visiting him.

They laughed at him: ‘What a thing to ask! Is not the whole world full of G*d’s glory?’

Then he answered his own question: ‘G*d dwells wherever we let G*d in’ (Martin Buber, The Way of Man according to the Teachings of Hasidism)

On this Shabbat we immerse ourselves in parashat VaYakhel-Pekudey, a double parashah that preserves a long and carefully detailed description of the building of the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary space created for HaShem. The Torah records HaShem commanding that it be done in order to accommodate the Divine among us.

וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם

And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them (Exodus 25.8)

Yet does a human-made structure really have the capacity to contain the Divine? The Book of Isaiah mocks the very thought:

כֹּ֚ה אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֔ה הַשָּׁמַ֣יִם כִּסְאִ֔י וְהָאָ֖רֶץ הֲדֹ֣ם רַגְלָ֑י אֵי־זֶ֥ה בַ֙יִת֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר תִּבְנוּ־לִ֔י וְאֵי־זֶ֥ה מָק֖וֹם מְנוּחָתִֽי׃ 

Thus said HaShem: heaven is My throne, earth is My footstool: Where could you build a house for Me, what place could serve as My abode?  (Isaiah 66.1)

These two verses stand at opposite ends of the tension inherent in Jewish theology: we have a sense of the holy being part of us, close to us, with us, but also of a vastness and awe that cannot be contained – what Rudolf Otto called in his 1917 study The Idea of the Holy a sense of mysterium tremendum, which he found equally potential in all living spiritual settings.

Ever since the Golden Calf, our people has been aware that we need a physical something to focus upon when we seek the holy which is both within and beyond us, and our connection to it. Our tradition preserves the sense that it’s not the building itself, though. After all, HaShem’s first holy space among us is a glorified tent.

So what’s with all the bricks and mortar? The soaring spaces and sprawling edifices? Partly, erecting impressive buildings make the people who build them feel impressive. But – and for us Jews this is a real caveat – one of the most impressive synagogue structure types was created for defensive purposes. More than one of the surviving shuls of Eastern Europe looks like a castle. During dangerous times, when the cossacks, or some other evil of the moment, threatened, the Jews would barricade themselves inside shuls that were massive, solid, and impenetrable (often enough, the rest of the village would come along with them!).

Today too many big, strong, impressive buildings – shuls, churches, business centers and community halls – have outlasted their people, for, as we know, no edifice, no matter how impressive, can withstand the larger social forces that either fill it with life or empty it of hope. 

No building can be made completely safe. Whether a tent in the wilderness or the great Temple in Jerusalem, we know well that they can all be destroyed.  May what we choose to do with and within our buildings be worthy of our presence there, and may our presence there together lift us, with the help of the divine within and beyond us, past our fears of all that we cannot control, toward the joy of sharing what we can: our love, our hope, our hearts.

Shabbat Parah 5786: That Golden Calf, Again

מִקְדָּשׁ רִאשׁוֹן מִפְּנֵי מָה חָרַב — מִפְּנֵי דְּבָרִים שֶׁהָיוּ בּוֹ: עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה וּשְׁפִיכוּת דָּמִים.

Due to what reason was the First Temple destroyed? It was destroyed due to matters that existed in the First Temple [including]: Idol worship and bloodshed. 

מִקְדָּשׁ שֵׁנִי מִפְּנֵי מָה חָרַב? מִפְּנֵי שֶׁהָיְתָה בּוֹ שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם. לְלַמֶּדְךָ שֶׁשְּׁקוּלָה שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם כְּנֶגֶד שָׁלֹשׁ עֲבֵירוֹת: עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה, גִּלּוּי עֲרָיוֹת, וּשְׁפִיכוּת דָּמִים. 

Why was the Second Temple destroyed? It was destroyed due to the fact that there was wanton hatred during that period. This comes to teach you that the sin of wanton hatred is equivalent to idol worship and bloodshed. (BT Yoma 9b)

__________________________

Our parashat hashavua is Ki Tisa, in which we read that the Israelite people make the worst choice imaginable: too anxious to wait any longer for Moshe to return from the top of Mt Sinai, too uncertain to trust in a holiness they cannot see, they decide that it’s time to create an image of HaShem. The impact of this failure is a different topic; what I want to consider with you now is the fact that HaShem gives up hope for any future with the people of Israel. 

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר ה’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֑ה רָאִ֙יתִי֙ אֶת־הָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה וְהִנֵּ֥ה עַם־קְשֵׁה־עֹ֖רֶף הֽוּא׃ וְעַתָּה֙ הַנִּ֣יחָה לִּ֔י וְיִֽחַר־אַפִּ֥י בָהֶ֖ם וַאֲכַלֵּ֑ם וְאֶֽעֱשֶׂ֥ה אוֹתְךָ֖ לְג֥וֹי גָּדֽוֹל׃ 

HaShem said to Moses, “I see that this is a stiff-necked people. Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation.”  (Exodus 32.9-10)

Even HaShem is capable, clearly, of giving up hope for Israel. So who are we not to sometimes feel worried? In war after war it has become clear that Israel is not going to be wiped off the map of the Levant, despite the desire of some. Yet there is a deeper unease that many of us can feel, possibly because it’s carried in thousands of years of cultural DNA. Something has gone very wrong with the dream of a Jewish state in the ancestral homeland.

Twice in our history, our Temple was destroyed and we became homeless; not because of the greater strength of an invader, but, as we read in the Babylonian Talmud that our sages intuited, because of our own internal social rot. The greatest prophets of our entire religious history derived their greatness from the insight that we do not act without consequences in this world, that “what goes around, comes around.” It was not the Babylonian Empire that razed the first Temple and caused the first Exile. It was our own tragically bad choices, the Golden Calf redux: idol worship and bloodshed. The second Temple fell not by the hands of the Romans, but because we chose hate over love in our society, and that viciousness took its course. Once again, we had created an image to believe in rather than the harder work of seeking the way of HaShem anew every day.

It’s difficult not to feel the echoes of those tragedies – which carry away guilty and innocent alike – when we witness a State of Israel that allows and encourages bloodshed in the West Bank. The fact of the wholesale slaughter of Gazans and state-sanctioned Jewish pogroms against Palestinian farmers is enough bloodshed to drown us all in despairing pain. The fact that the current government of the State of Israel holds up its existence as the greater good, with expanded boundaries that not only wipe out Palestine but threaten Lebanon as well, equates powerfully with idol worship. The theology is clear: if what one worships causes one to transgress mitzvot such as “love your neighbor as yourself” or “do not oppress the stranger”, then to argue away these mitzvot in order to rationalize “Greater Israel” is not following the ways of HaShem. It is not what Judaism teaches.

Yet the despair we may feel, or the desire to agree with HaShem’s (momentary) loss of hope in this week’s parashah, must be confronted as something less than the best possible conclusion. We are, after all, created in the Divine Image, which means that we share its essence. The mystics deduced that to be created in that Image is a mandate to copy the acts of HaShem as our ultimate role model.

As HaShem left the door open to be talked out of wiping the Israelites out, and was willing to be convinced that not all is lost, then we, similarly in our day, are called upon not to abandon our Israeli siblings. Like HaShem in this passage, we need to settle down, past the emotional reaction we are justified in having, and then to think:

  1. Human beings, Jews too, are created by HaShem with flaws. When creations of our own fail us, we are not immune from the fault. 
  1. Many Jewish Israelis are fighting hard against the dehumanization the State perpetrates upon Palestinians; in the words of our Patriarch Abraham, will we judge the guilty and the innocent alike?
  1. Most importantly of all, one never quite gives up on a loved one. Our sources reassure us that HaShem will never give up on us:

חביבים ישראל, שאף על פי שהם טמאים שכינה ביניהם; שנאמר כי אני שוכן בתוכה, ואומר ולא יטמאו עוד את מחניהם, ולא תטמא הארץ. רבי נתן אומר: חביבים ישראל שבכל מקום שגלו שכינה עמהם:

Beloved are Israel, for even when they are tamei the Shekhinah reposes among them — (Vayikra 16:16) “who dwells with them in the midst of their uncleanliness,” and (Ibid. 15:31) “… when they defile My sanctuary which is in their midst,” and (Bamidbar 5:3) “and they shall not make unclean their camps in whose midst I dwell.” (Ibid. 35:34) “for I HaShem dwell in the midst of the children of Israel.” R. Nathan says: Beloved are Israel, for wherever they are exiled the Shekhinah is with them.

We are feeling the exile right now: not of geography, but of distance from the World To Come, that world we know we are capable of building, but somehow never can bring into existence. Everything seems tainted beyond recovery. As much as some of us would like to insist that we are not attached in any way to Israel, it is not true. In Israel and everywhere where Jews feel connected beyond reason and beyond any possible sundering – we are Israel, together, and we mourn, as well as celebrate when we can, in many different ways and with much disagreement. But all Jews feel the effect upon any Jew, and that includes the Jewish state.

Our parashah declares that in our fear and anxiety for the Jewish state, HaShem is with us. Our mistakes and our cruelties will echo as they must in a world in which effect surely follows cause, yet compassion is real and love is stronger than death. The Shekhinah, the Presence of HaShem, is still among us even when we fail miserably at following the ethical path; we can never, never give up on the small light of hope that we are always capable of imagining, even when we cannot see it.

Now, when the waters are pressing mightily
on the walls of the dams,
now, when the white storks, returning,
are transformed in the middle of the firmament
into fleets of jet planes,
we will feel again how strong are the ribs
and how vigorous is the warm air in the lungs
and how much daring is needed to love on the exposed plain,
when the great dangers are arched above,
and how much love is required
to fill all the empty vessels
and the watches that stopped telling time,
and how much breath,
a whirlwind of breath,
to sing the small song of spring.

– Yehuda Amichai, trans by Leon Weiseltier

Shabbat Zakhor: Remember to Forget – what?

וְהָיָ֡ה בְּהָנִ֣יחַ ה’ אֱלֹהֶ֣יךָ ׀ לְ֠ךָ֠ מִכׇּל־אֹ֨יְבֶ֜יךָ מִסָּבִ֗יב בָּאָ֙רֶץ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר ה’־אֱ֠לֹהֶ֠יךָ נֹתֵ֨ן לְךָ֤ נַחֲלָה֙ לְרִשְׁתָּ֔הּ תִּמְחֶה֙ אֶת־זֵ֣כֶר עֲמָלֵ֔ק מִתַּ֖חַת הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם לֹ֖א תִּשְׁכָּֽח

Therefore, when HaShem grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that HaShem is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget! (Deut, 26.19)

This haftarah is chosen specifically for this second of four special Shabbatot that precede Pesakh; Shabbat Zakhor, this Shabbat, is not only one of those four special Shabbatot, but also relates to Purim, to which it always occurs in close proximity. Zakhor, remember, we are told: remember to wipe out the memory of Amalek. Remember to forget; how is one to fulfill this mitzvah?

The story is seared into our people’s memory:

זָכ֕וֹר אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂ֥ה לְךָ֖ עֲמָלֵ֑ק בַּדֶּ֖רֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶ֥ם מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃ 

Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—  

אֲשֶׁ֨ר קָֽרְךָ֜ בַּדֶּ֗רֶךְ וַיְזַנֵּ֤ב בְּךָ֙ כׇּל־הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִ֣ים אַֽחֲרֶ֔יךָ וְאַתָּ֖ה עָיֵ֣ף וְיָגֵ֑עַ וְלֹ֥א יָרֵ֖א אֱלֹהִֽים׃ 

how, 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. (Deut. 25. 17-18)

The story is related in Exodus 17.8-14 and recalled a generation later in Deuteronomy. Something about what happened became legendary for our people. So much so that Amalek becomes symbolic of all the evil that is directed against the people of Israel for all time afterward – to the point that thousands of years later, during the first Gulf War in 1991, Israeli society saw Saddam Hussein, the ruler of Iraq who attacked Israel at that time, as a descendent of Amalek. (Just imagine how that was solidified when the first Gulf War ended around Purim!)

Amalek is a feared, hated enemy of the Jewish people. In our special haftarah for Shabbat Zakhor, King Shaul is ordered by the Prophet Shmu’el, relaying the message of HaShem, to wipe out Amalek, to completely and “utterly destroy” the effect of Amalek from the world. 

Yet at the end of the day, after all is done, Shaul has spared the king. The people are dead, the homes are set afire, and the possessions are destroyed – and the king is in captivity. According to the prophet Shmu’el, who has been Shaul’s companion and guide from the beginning, this is a mortal sin, and Shaul has forfeited the kingdom by this act. Many of our commentaries struggle with this: why should sparing the king’s life, an act of mercy, be considered so heinous a sin by HaShem?

Our teacher Nehama Leibowitz ז“ל brings a response from Midrash Kohelet: “Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said, whoever is merciful when then should be cruel will end up being cruel where they should be merciful.” 

“In other words, Saul’s sin lay in his arbitrariness, not in his cruelty or compassion. His offense lay in the way he chose at one moment to be merciful and at another to be cruel, as he himself saw fit and not in conformity with the will of God. He was guilty of suiting his conduct to the fluctuation of his personal feelings.” What caused him to be so influenced by his own feelings?Class consciousness, she suggests. Not humanity, not ethics, not mercy: Leibowitz notes that Shaul did not spare children, nor inquire after the guilt or innocence of any Amalekite, and concludes that “he was loath to slay a king. Class solidarity overlooks all other considerations.” (Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in VaYikra, 314-315) 

What are we supposed to remember on Shabbat Zakhor? Especially when it is coupled with Purim, on which all of us were equally in danger, and the day is saved when the elite (Queen Esther) insists that she is one with all her people, class be damned.

Perhaps it is that ethics are not meant to be applied when we feel like it, according to our own judgment, clouded as it is by the influence of all those aspects of our humanity that don’t feel shared. Labeling and distancing others as The Poor, or The Billionaires, or Us, or Them, or any other objectification of class or group, makes the effect of our acts of mercy – or its lack – arbitrary.  

Perhaps it is that Amalek does exist in the world; as the arch-villain Haman (descended from Amalek) demonstrates, there will always be those who will take advantage of weakness for their own benefit. The Sage Hillel summed up what we are meant to learn from this: “that which is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole Torah.” (BT Shabbat 31a.6)

Perhaps is it that we should remember humility when we rush to judge someone else, or the reward or punishment that we witness occurring to someone else. More often than not, we don’t know what we’re talking about. We don’t know the whole story. All we know is that the person we are judging has more in common with us than any act, class or circumstance that might separate us.

Shabbat Terumah: Just a Bit

וְהַכְּלָל, כִּי אָסוּר לְיָאֵשׁ

The rule is: it is forbidden to despair – Likkutei Mohoran II.78.7.1

We are in the month of Adar, the month of which our tradition says משנכנס אדר מרבים שמחה  – “when the month of Adar enters, joy increases” (Ta’anit 29a.18) Note here that, despite what we often say, the obligation here is not to be joyful, but to increase joy. That differentiation exists in the Hebrew, and it’s worth considering.

Joy and despair are human emotions, found at opposite ends of a spectrum of feeling. During our Pesakh Seder, for example, we’ll drink from a cup of joy that isn’t quite full, since we will have spilled drops in memory of the plagues and those who suffered. The question of our day is: can we learn to do the same with despair? to add in some appropriate drops of joy? To increase joy incrementally, just a bit?

We are living through difficult days. It is easy to become overwhelmed and to flirt with the idea of giving up. But on this day as well as every other day of our lives, Jewish spiritual tradition encourages us to do the best we can with our lives, to turn them, as my teacher Dr Byron Sherwin ז״ל wrote, into a work of art. 

The idea of the small, incremental adjustment is useful here. We don’t do the work of becoming who we are meant to be by becoming overwhelmed by the big picture, but by paying attention to the small individual acts and steps that make up our lives. Although the story of Superman swooping in and saving the world is attractive, it is because it is impossible that it is called escapist literature. None of us is called to be Super, just to fulfill our obligations to life day to day, moment to moment. To add a drop of joy.

It is sometimes true, according to Jewish ethical teachings, that despair is nothing but self-indulgence. Giving in to hopelessness is too often a way to excuse oneself from acting. Taking refuge in “I can’t fix it, therefore I refuse to face it” is childish, and doesn’t absolve us of the next moment that will call to us. As the ancients already knew, “it is not up to you to complete the work. Neither are you free to absolve yourself of doing your part.” (Pirke Avot 2.16)

None of us can stop the terror of our days; but all of us can remain focused upon what we can do to alleviate it, to push back against it, to light a candle that will burn defiantly bright in the encroaching darkness. Just a drop, just a small act. This week’s parashah carries a clue that can help us keep on keepin’ on, in the word that names the parashah: Terumah.

Terumah is usually translated “offering”. But to delve more deeply into the meaning of the word is to open a vista onto what a true “offering” is. The word תרומה terumah comes from a root that means to separate by lifting up and away. So a terumah is not something other than, but part of. 

Consider: we usually think that the way to meet a special moment is to bring out the best, that the ordinary won’t do. Yet our ancestors understood the command to bring terumah as the invitation to set apart a part of what was everyday, the usual, the regular, and to dedicate it to a higher purpose. 

Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, known as the Mohoran (the acronym for morenu harav Nakhman, “our teacher Rabbi Nahman”), lived in the late 1700s in eastern Europe, and died at the age of 38 from tuberculosis. Despite ample reason to sink into despair from the general conditions of Jewish life, not to mention his own, Rabbi Nahman taught that despair is contrary to Judaism. No matter the darkness in which one finds oneself, he said, it is always possible to take a step toward light. Not by becoming someone different, but, perhaps, by recognizing that at every moment a terumah is possible – that it is always possible to lift up a single, small moment in one’s life and offer it as a gift to HaShem.

We do that by noticing the life in which we take part, even when sunk in our own problems; by paying attention to the reality of both pain and delight in the lives of those about us, and responding to those moments; and by not turning away from small signs of hope – the first crocuses pushing up from the cold dirt still seek to bloom, no matter what.

What could be more a source of at least a small moment of joy than that? Let that be your terumah, your separation of one small moment from the rest of your day, lifted up. Thus life is made sacred, moment by small moment.

Shabbat Shekalim 5786: In The Balance

Bronze balance pans and lead weights, Vapheio tholos tomb, Laconia. Late Helladic (LH) II (15th c. BCE) National Museum, Athens

הֶֽעָשִׁ֣יר לֹֽא־יַרְבֶּ֗ה וְהַדַּל֙ לֹ֣א יַמְעִ֔יט מִֽמַּחֲצִ֖ית הַשָּׁ֑קֶל לָתֵת֙ אֶת־תְּרוּמַ֣ת ה’ לְכַפֵּ֖ר עַל־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶֽם
the rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than half a shekel when giving an  offering to HaShem to atone for your souls. (Ex 30.15)


This Shabbat is called by two names: mishpatim, referring to the part of the Torah we are reading, and shekalim, a word which comes to denote money, but is derived from the word “balance”. This recalls the ancient practice of value defined by balance in a scales against something of agreed-upon value between two who engage in a transaction.


On one side, something the value of which is being determined; on the other side, something which has an agreed-upon value. The valuation hangs, literally, on the agreement.


Our ancestors lived in a world in which only agreement upon common terms could create a common reality. If we all believe that this weight of silver equals that measure of grain, then the value is established. I can buy it from you and confidently calculate its value to re-sell, should I wish to do so. Naturally enough, the word shekel went from “weight” to “coin”, both connoting value of a certain amount. 


Shabbat Shekalim was first established to remind ancient Israelites that as the month of Adar is soon to begin, the month of Nisan, of Pesakh, is only one moon away. It was every year on the new moon of Pesakh that a half-shekel was collected from every Israelite. This is often understood to be a tax for upkeep of public buildings, which in our history indicated the sacred space, first the mishkan and later the central holy space, the Temple in Jerusalem. The purpose of Shabbat Shekalim was to proclaim through ritual that tax time was nearing, so that everyone would be prepared to contribute at the required time. (For more on Shabbat Shekalim and how our tradition learns from it to shed interesting light on Purim, read The Shabbat of the Coins.)


Our Torah indicates that the half-shekel is to be collected from each nefesh, each living breathing Israelite; “the rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less.” (Ex. 30.15) This makes sense only if the half-shekel is a statement of equality: all of us, each living person, of any age or class or gender or health or financial situation, is an exactly equal creation reflecting HaShem. HaShem, here, is the concept that stands in for ultimate meaning, not relative or multiply understood, but simple and singular: each of us reflects the image of that which is Eternal. Each of us is, equally and beyond all human manipulation of valuation, holy.


The rule of law, in our Torah as well as in our own day, is clear here: in order for us all to confidently calculate shared ideas of value, the law must regard all of us equally, must find our weight in the balance of value to be equal and agreed upon, for us to live together in peace and harmony. This basic, necessarily-shared human agreement has long been challenged by those who seek profit or power in claiming superiority over others. Sometimes it has been Jews that have been less valued, as historically both religion and nationalism have labeled us as other; at other times is has been us Jews that have made the political or social argument that others are less than we are.


Only last week, the giving of the Torah seemed so promising! But almost immediately the clash between ideal and human reality causes a complete upheaval of the newborn social order. In the weeks to come, on Shabbatot Terumah, Tetzaveh, and Ki Tisa we will see our people struggle between ideal and reality, and soon the shining beginning will appear tarnished, polluted, perhaps doomed. Tellingly, it is our inability to agree on the value of the land that will exile us from it, and the inability to agree with each other that will bring about a generation of wandering homelessness.


In our own day, when the general agreement upon the value of a single soul has been so betrayed, it takes a radical willingness and a great deal of personal courage to cling to the ideal. Perhaps it is only our continuing sense that Something Has Gone Very Wrong that we can find the will to insist that humanity is still sacred, and that peace and equality are nothing less than the foundation upon which we are meant to build our lives.


No human construction lasts. The true weight of what we build toward is, however, Eternal, and the balance is always true. May we keep the sense of that vision, and not just our fear and our disappointment, before us always. ואהבת לרעך כמוך – v’ahavta l’rayakha kamokha, you shall treat the other as you wish to be treated. We must love the other as we love ourselves; the life of the other hanging in the balance is exactly equal to mine, or yours. Or, as the Sage Rabbi Hillel put it, that which is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is all the Torah – we must keep learning it. 

Shabbat Yitro: What Does the Voice of G*d sound like?

וַיְדַבֵּ֣ר אֱלֹהִ֔ים אֵ֛ת כׇּל־הַדְּבָרִ֥ים הָאֵ֖לֶּה לֵאמֹֽר         

God spoke all these words, saying (Exodus 20.1)

What does the voice of G*d sound like? One opinion out of Jewish tradition is that we cannot handle hearing the actual voice of HaShem. Literally, hearing the Voice of G*d is insupportable in human terms:

“the Israelites’ souls departed from them when G’d spoke ….according to the Midrash the remainder of the Ten Commandments remained engraved in fire on top of Mount Sinai until G’d had revived the Israelites with the dew of life. – Or HaHayim, reporting on Shir haShirim Rabbah 5

The theophany at Sinai is a classic expression of the belief that Divinity must be vast and overwhelming to our sense. But another source, the Haftarah for Pinkhas, suggests something very different.

וְהִנֵּ֧ה ה’ עֹבֵ֗ר וְר֣וּחַ גְּדוֹלָ֡ה וְחָזָ֞ק מְפָרֵק֩ הָרִ֨ים וּמְשַׁבֵּ֤ר סְלָעִים֙ לִפְנֵ֣י ה’ לֹ֥א בָר֖וּחַ ה’ וְאַחַ֤ר הָר֙וּחַ֙ רַ֔עַשׁ לֹ֥א בָרַ֖עַשׁ ה’ וְאַחַ֤ר הָרַ֙עַשׁ֙ אֵ֔שׁ לֹ֥א בָאֵ֖שׁ ה’ וְאַחַ֣ר הָאֵ֔שׁ ק֖וֹל דְּמָמָ֥ה דַקָּֽה׃ 

Lo, HaShem passed by. There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks by Divine power; but HaShem was not in the wind. 

After the wind—an earthquake; but HaShem was not in the earthquake.  

After the earthquake—fire; but HaShem was not in the fire. 

And after the fire—a still, small voice. (I Kings 19.11-12)

Already among our ancestors there were sharply divergent views of what it might mean to “hear” the “voice” of HaShem. Genesis 3.8 imagines HaShem as a Babylonian emperor; in Psalms 29.3 the comparison is to Ba’al, the Canaanite god of thunder, lightning and storm. Deuteronomy 5.23 just keeps shaking its head that we survived whatever it was, at all.

What distills out of many different accounts seems to be that the Voice of G*d is something that, if you hear it and follow it, it will serve as an unfailing guide to your life path. The voice is not audible to our ears, in other words: it is what we “hear” via the mitzvot, the obligations that form the shape of Jewish religious observance.

כִּ֣י תִשְׁמַ֗ע בְּקוֹל֙ ה’ אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ לִשְׁמֹ֤ר מִצְוֺתָיו֙ וְחֻקֹּתָ֔יו הַכְּתוּבָ֕ה בְּסֵ֥פֶר הַתּוֹרָ֖ה הַזֶּ֑ה כִּ֤י תָשׁוּב֙ אֶל־ה’ אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ בְּכׇל־לְבָבְךָ֖ וּבְכׇל־נַפְשֶֽׁךָ       

if you hearken to the voice of HaShem your G*d, by keeping the commands and laws—what is written in this Torah— if you return to HaShem your G*d with all your heart and with all your being. (Deut. 30.10)

This is how we ourselves can also hope to “hear” the voice of HaShem. Not through some thunderous Hebrew (or English!) comment coming from outside or inside of us, but by way of our complicated hearts, as we suffer the pain of all that is wrong with the world, while knowing what should be, what could be. 

No two of us will “hear” that voice in the same way, because each of us is unique, and a uniquely precious reflection of HaShem. We must first overcome the desire to turn HaShem into a straw man to be blamed with all that is evil, and begin to understand that HaShem and you and I are all of One piece. 

Only then we will be able to hear the voice of HaShem clearly: where justice struggles against evil, where love continues to exist alongside destruction, and where belief endures that hope is a live thing that must be nurtured.