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.

Shabbat BeShalakh 5786: What It Takes to Leave Egypt

Evil consists in ruining someone else’s life rather than examining one’s own. – M Scott Peck, People of the Lie

As we follow Torah’s narrative of the Israelite escape from Egypt, this week’s parashah relates a tense, utterly human moment. It’s the well-known sense that often sets in immediately after one takes an irrevocable step, that the step was absolutely wrong.

And so it is with our ancestors as they head out of Egypt. The land is ruined by plagues, the first born is dead in every house, and a panicked motley group of slaves is stumbling forward into the unknown. 

Almost immediately, they reach the Sea of Reeds. 

וַיִּרְדְּפ֨וּ מִצְרַ֜יִם אַחֲרֵיהֶ֗ם וַיַּשִּׂ֤יגוּ אוֹתָם֙ חֹנִ֣ים עַל־הַיָּ֔ם כׇּל־סוּס֙ רֶ֣כֶב פַּרְעֹ֔ה וּפָרָשָׁ֖יו וְחֵיל֑וֹ

the Egyptians gave chase to them, and all the chariot horses of Pharaoh, his horsemen, and his warriors overtook them encamped by the sea

וּפַרְעֹ֖ה הִקְרִ֑יב וַיִּשְׂאוּ֩ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֨ל אֶת־עֵינֵיהֶ֜ם וְהִנֵּ֥ה מִצְרַ֣יִם ׀ נֹסֵ֣עַ אַחֲרֵיהֶ֗ם וַיִּֽירְאוּ֙ מְאֹ֔ד וַיִּצְעֲק֥וּ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל

As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites caught sight of the Egyptians advancing upon them. Greatly frightened, the Israelites cried out. (Exodus 14.9-10)

Death – or, at the very least, the complete failure of what they thought was their way to freedom, seems to be staring them in the face. What does this group of people do? They do what most frightened people do: they turned on their leaders.

According to a famous midrash, the People of Israel not only attacked their leadership for the move, they also attacked anyone who tried to take steps to deal with the situation at hand. When Hashem said to Moshe, “Tell the people to go forward (into the Sea)”

זֶה אוֹמֵר אֵין אֲנִי יוֹרֵד תְּחִילָּה לַיָּם וְזֶה אוֹמֵר אֵין אֲנִי יוֹרֵד תְּחִילָּה לַיָּם קָפַץ נַחְשׁוֹן בֶּן עַמִּינָדָב וְיָרַד לַיָּם תְּחִילָּה

this [tribe] said, “I will not be the first to go down to the sea,” and this one said, “I will not be the first to go down to the sea.” 

We all know how the story ends; the act of faith of plunging into the Sea itself causes the Sea to part, even as we have seen in our own lives how reality can be shaped by one courageous act. Yes, stepping forward is frightening even when it seems to be the only way. The question that remains is why some would rather stay sunk in anger, in despair and in fear, rather than hold hands and take a scary step together.

A rather sobering midrash asserts that only one-fifth of the Israelites left Egypt with Moshe. The rest, majority voice though they be, are never heard from again. On this Shabbat may we recognize and celebrate the comfort of the companionship of the community we are building, small though it be. That small minority of those who step forward to create that community, to shine a small light in the face of encroaching darkness and who hold fast to the good we are trying to maintain in the uncertainty of each of these scary moments we are living. The real leaders among us are those whose light illuminates the path – and that includes us when we let ours join theirs.

Shabbat Bo: No One Should Suffer; No One

שלא היה רוצה הקב”ה שיהיה פרעה בעינוי וצער לפניו 

the Holy Blessed One did not want Pharaoh to suffer – Gur Aryeh Ex.10.3

Our parashat hashavua brings us to the midst of plagues and confrontations. The suffering of the Egyptian people is increasing, and for whatever reason (conspiracy theories? miracles? scientific cause and effect? the effort of the human brain to make sense of reality is perennial) the blows against the economy, agriculture and society are now being blamed on Pharaoh’s unwillingness to let go of his slaves.

For many of us, the suffering of the Egyptians, who seem to be innocent of their Pharaoh’s choices, is the most difficult thing to understand in our Torah. Seen through the lens of that ancient mindset, the fortunes of we regular people are doomed to be no more important than necessary collateral damage when kings – or gods – fight. Throughout the Levant this belief was a way of understanding why bad things could happen to good people – you just happened to be in the way. Not much has changed in human history.

It would be easy to surrender to the idea that suffering because of one’s context, not one’s own agency, is inevitable and should simply be accepted as one of the certainties of life. Certainly the Jewish mystics who see our entire universe as trapped in a cycle of gevurah, where justice too often slides into cruelty, would agree. But Rabbi Judah Loew (the Maharal of Prague, who did not create the golem of Prague even though the legend attributes it to him) sees something different, and he sees it in the opening lines of our parashah:

וַיָּבֹ֨א מֹשֶׁ֣ה וְאַהֲרֹן֮ אֶל־פַּרְעֹה֒ וַיֹּאמְר֣וּ אֵלָ֗יו כֹּֽה־אָמַ֤ר ה֙’ אֱלֹהֵ֣י הָֽעִבְרִ֔ים עַד־מָתַ֣י מֵאַ֔נְתָּ לֵעָנֹ֖ת מִפָּנָ֑י שַׁלַּ֥ח עַמִּ֖י וְיַֽעַבְדֻֽנִי

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says ‘ה the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go that they may worship Me (Exodus 10.3)

Rabbi Loew could have interpreted this statement as Pharaonic arrogance or stupidity, or spent some time blaming HaShem for hardening Pharaoh’s heart, so that it’s not really even his fault. But for whatever reason, the Maharal (the term stands for Morenu HaRav Loew, “our teacher Rabbi Loew”) goes in an entirely different direction.

Pharaoh, for all his cruelty, is not the ultimate evil; he is not a monster, nor the dupe of a cabinet of monsters. He is a human being, misled and misinformed and mistaken in his choices, and the Maharal sees Moshe as conveying HaShem’s concern: you don’t have to suffer like this. 

For the same reason, we spill wine from the cup of our joy at Pesakh, for our joy cannot be complete while Egyptians are suffering; for the same reason, we do not recite the complete Hallel, since when the angels wanted to begin singing after the Israelites were freed, HaShem stopped them with “my creations, the reflection of my Being, is dying in the Sea, and you want to sing?” 

HaShem does not want us to take joy in the suffering of those who hurt us. It is pure childishness, and as the bumper sticker says, will leave the whole world blind and toothless, if we insist that others hurt because they have hurt us. This is not an easy concept for us, when we are righteously angry and full of vengeance, but hating those who hate you does not cancel out the hate. It only adds fuel to its strength.

If we are not to be changed forever by the evil expressed in our world today, we must remember that not only we, but all human beings, are created in the Divine Image. Our task is not to destroy other humans who do evil, but to destroy the evil.

The opposite of gevurah in the mystical understanding is hesed. We are out of balance in the direction of judgement; more hesed, more mercy and kindness and compassion, is all that will help to heal what’s wrong with the Pharaohs of the world, and within ourselves.

VaEra 5786: We Will Be What We Will Be

In this week’s parashah HaShem and Moshe meet. HaShem reveals the divine essence in a mysterious phrase: Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, which can be translated in many ways that all can be summarized as Being. Since ancient Hebrew did not express the idea of tense the way we expect in modern language, it’s possible that the single word אהיה Ehyeh can mean will be, was, or is.

One possible lesson we may learn here is that, as Psalmist and Prophet both assure us, HaShem does not change. The essence of Being is, always. Another lesson, courtesy of the mystics, is that since we are, at our best, created in the Image of that Being, we are also capable of that kind of steadiness: as we were, we are and will be.

The question each of us faces in the mirror is, what part of all that is will I reflect in all my Being? So much exists and exerts its strength in the world and in the human psyche: evil is possible, so is indifference; fear as well as hope. 

One conundrum of this mysterious passage is that HaShem indicates, in so many words, that 

וָאֵרָ֗א אֶל־אַבְרָהָ֛ם אֶל־יִצְחָ֥ק וְאֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֖ב בְּאֵ֣ל שַׁדָּ֑י וּשְׁמִ֣י ה’ לֹ֥א נוֹדַ֖עְתִּי לָהֶֽם׃ 

I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name ‘ה (Ex.6.3).

On the surface this is endlessly problematic, since we can find the name HaShem, which we indicate as ‘ה, throughout the Patriarchal stories of Genesis. The issue for our ancestors may be that they could never access the story from the starting point where we find ourselves. Yes, they knew suffering and struggle, but they never questioned their link to each other, their kehillah, their community, the way that many Jews do today.

The great commentator Rashi suggests an explanation that hints at this:

שמי ה׳ לא נודעתי להם But by My Name ‘ה I was not known to them — It is not written here לא הודעתי [My name ‘ה] I did not make known to them, but לא נודעתי [by My name ‘ה], was I not known [unto them] — i. e. I was not recognised by them in My attribute of “keeping faith”, by reason of which My name is called ה׳, which denotes that I am certain to substantiate My promise, for, indeed, I made promises to them but did not fulfill them [during their lifetime].

The Patriarchs had the same problem we do, at essence: they were individuals following after a dawning idea; they did not see it in their lifetimes. Abraham was told that their offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, but that did not happen for hundreds of years after that promise was made. The Patriarchs did not have a community in which they could belong, which could be the grounding for their lives and their struggles. They never saw the fulfillment of their hopes and dreams, although those hopes and dreams were fulfilled. 

It follows, then, that promises are not revealed in their wholeness to individuals, but only to the communities in which they have their Being. This weekend we celebrate the life and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He understood this truth clearly and spoke of it in the last speech he gave, on the day before he was murdered. The message: I’ve seen what we are all dearly hoping for, and whether or not I get there is not important. We will get there.

Where Dr King wanted to take us is a place where love outweighs hate and sweeps away  injustice. From here, the scholarship of Dr Israel Knohl leads us directly back to our parashah with a recent article showing that Ehyeh possibly derives (as well as if not instead of the Hebrew) from the cognate ancient languages of the area, and that its root means not life but love. Love within community, if we would be a kehillah; love beyond that which would separate us, if we would be ivri, the Hebrews, whose name literally means “boundary crosser.”

We have one choice in these days, and that is the stance we will cling to as the chaos around us intensifies. We can choose hate or love, idolatry or HaShem. If we choose love – strong, passionate, powerful love – we cannot hope that we will ourselves see the outcome of our choice. But we can deserve to claim the hope that the day will come when our community, in which we have our Being, will see the Promise Land.

Shabbat Shemot: Standing up to Pharaoh

Renee Good: may her memory be a blessing

“Tank Man” temporarily stops the advance of four Type 59 tanks on June 5, 1989, in Beijing. This photograph (one of six similar versions) was taken by Jeff Widener of the Associated Press. (Wikipedia)

וַיָּ֥קׇם מֶֽלֶךְ־חָדָ֖שׁ עַל־מִצְרָ֑יִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹֽא־יָדַ֖ע אֶת־יוֹסֵֽף

A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. – Shemot 1.8

This week we begin a new book of the Torah, and a new reality arises for the family of Jacob living there, now grown to a people called the Hebrews. Like many immigrants, they are singled out as a cause of danger and Pharaoh commands the death of all Hebrew baby boys as they are born. 

But two women, midwives ordered to carry out this order, manage not to do so.

וַיִּקְרָ֤א מֶֽלֶךְ־מִצְרַ֙יִם֙ לַֽמְיַלְּדֹ֔ת וַיֹּ֣אמֶר לָהֶ֔ן מַדּ֥וּעַ עֲשִׂיתֶ֖ן הַדָּבָ֣ר הַזֶּ֑ה וַתְּחַיֶּ֖יןָ אֶת־הַיְלָדִֽים׃ 

So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, letting the boys live?”

וַתֹּאמַ֤רְןָ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת֙ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֔ה כִּ֣י לֹ֧א כַנָּשִׁ֛ים הַמִּצְרִיֹּ֖ת הָֽעִבְרִיֹּ֑ת כִּֽי־חָי֣וֹת הֵ֔נָּה בְּטֶ֨רֶם תָּב֧וֹא אֲלֵהֶ֛ן הַמְיַלֶּ֖דֶת וְיָלָֽדוּ׃ 

The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women: they are vigorous. Before the midwife can come to them, they have given birth.” – Shemot1.18-19

There is an ancient debate about whether the midwives mentioned in this  first parashah of the book of Shemot (Exodus) are Hebrew or Egyptian. Sound arguments have been made on the question of whether to translate the phrase לַֽמְיַלְּדֹ֖ת הָֽעִבְרִיֹּ֑ת midwives to the Hebrews or Hebrew midwives. 

There is another question at least as interesting. These are two women in a vast court, surrounded by many powerful armed men who carry out Pharaoh’s every command. How is it that they are able to successfully block the cruelty of Pharaoh?

We who are reeling daily from shock after shock, cruelty after vicious cruelty commanded by murderously irresponsible “authorities” and carried out by lawless “law enforcement”, we might ask the same question: how in the world might it be possible to stand between innocent lives and the evil that seeks to end them?

 The bitterness of our understanding, that there is no dependable rule of law that we can access and within which rely upon truth and seek safety, is not new. It is simply, disappointingly and devastatingly, coming around again. According to the most ancient sources of our tradition, a social contract that will treat us fairly is one of the oldest aspects of group living understood to be necessary for a functional society. The “Noahide Laws”, a reference to a sense of common decency that was the very least considered to be realistically expected across all human tribes and social groups, includes the requirement of establishing courts to ensure justice for all. 

The murder of Renee Good on Wednesday January 7 2026 by ICE “agents” has stunned and enraged many. Her death was unjustifiable in any way. It is also a warning to all of us who seek to protest, to protect the innocent, and to stop the tsunami of evil flooding us all. I use the word tsunami advisedly: we cannot, in other words, stop this. We can only consider how best – how most effectively – we might respond.

This is not a new sense of relative helplessness, and while it is demoralizing to recognize this, it is also useful; we have been here before, there are established ways to respond. Here the midwives teach us a valuable lesson in effective resistance: in this case, plausible lying.

For those raised to believe that morality is governed by Kant’s categorical imperative (such that anything which is true must always be true) it may be difficult to believe that Jewish ethics could sanction anything other than the truth in every moment. But that would be to misunderstand the goal of justice and morality, which is to support and nurture life. 

Refusing orders is one way of standing against evil, but in the case of the midwives it would not have accomplished any useful purpose except for their martyrdom. Dying for a cause may be necessary, but it should never be sought out or accepted unless and until all other efforts to overcome evil are thoroughly exhausted. That is why the midwives don’t try to murder Pharaoh in the throne room, even at the expense of their lives; it is why they pretend to go along with his orders to kill every boy born to the Hebrews. 

No matter how attractive the idea of standing heroically before an overwhelming force might seem, it is not effective most of the time. The brave man who stood before the tanks at Tiananmen Square did not stop the slaughter of innocents. Although U.S. culture as reflected by Hollywood leans toward the individual hero as the source of salvation, individualism only vastly limits one’s resources.

Jewish teachings on morality, ethics and survival are all predicated upon humility: none of us is a superman and not one of us can save the world. Alone, we are not enough. The midwives teach us: work together. Create, with others, a strategy that will allow for effective action. As one activist says, “sometimes you have to let people think you aren’t doing anything in order to get anything done.” 

Let us not despair. So much standing up against Pharaoh is happening among us, even though we may not hear about it. Good people are acting everywhere quietly, with some effectiveness, against the evil of our day. Some of them are lying their heads off about it. You and I, too, must find our way to act effectively: in a way that is not self-destructive but actually perhaps effective, in some small way, in shedding light in the darkness of these days.

Shabbat VaYehi 5786: Fruitfulness and Forgetting

וַיְבָ֨רְכֵ֜ם בַּיּ֣וֹם הַהוּא֮ לֵאמוֹר֒ בְּךָ֗ יְבָרֵ֤ךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר יְשִֽׂמְךָ֣ אֱלֹהִ֔ים כְּאֶפְרַ֖יִם וְכִמְנַשֶּׁ֑ה וַיָּ֥שֶׂם אֶת־אֶפְרַ֖יִם לִפְנֵ֥י מְנַשֶּֽׁה׃ 

[Jacob] blessed them that day, saying, “By you shall Israel invoke blessings, saying: may Elohim make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.” Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh. (Gen. 48.20)

Blessing one’s children has been a regular part of the erev Shabbat table ritual for generations: daughters by the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah, and sons, not by the perhaps expected trio of Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but rather by Jacob’s grandsons by Joseph, Menashe and Efrayim. 

Why? According to the modern scholarship, which picks up echoes preserved in very old midrash, the historical answer probably has something to do with ancient Israelite politics. For the People of Israel, though, performing this ritual throughout the ages demonstrates another kind of answer: that developed naturally through the cultural experience of the people.

When we look at the names Joseph gave his sons, it makes this blessing of our own children by those names curious, for two reasons: first, the meaning of the names (this translation by the scholar Everett Fox):

וַיִּקְרָ֥א יוֹסֵ֛ף אֶת־שֵׁ֥ם הַבְּכ֖וֹר מְנַשֶּׁ֑ה כִּֽי־נַשַּׁ֤נִי אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־כׇּל־עֲמָלִ֔י וְאֵ֖ת כׇּל־בֵּ֥ית אָבִֽי׃ 

Yosef called the name of the firstborn: Menashe/Who-Makes-Forgetting, meaning: Elohim has made-me-forget all my hardships and my family house. (Gen. 41.51)

וְאֵ֛ת שֵׁ֥ם הַשֵּׁנִ֖י קָרָ֣א אֶפְרָ֑יִם כִּֽי־הִפְרַ֥נִי אֱלֹהִ֖ים בְּאֶ֥רֶץ עׇנְיִֽי׃ 

And the name of the second he called: Efrayim/Abundantly Fruitful, 

meaning: Elohim has made me bear fruit in the land of my affliction. (Gen 41.52)

Second, because the blessing is given in a subversion of birth order that students of the Torah know very well by now, as the younger, Efrayim, is mentioned before the older, Menashe. 

One understanding we may derive here is that we bless our children to be fruitful, and to forget their past. This seems rather contrary to what we Jews take for granted, we who have ritualized memory from Kaddish to Kiddush to Pesakh. 

Perhaps, though, we can understand that there is a tension between these two names: that fruitfulness requires memory, but making one’s own way in the world requires distance from all that one remembers, lest one become only an echo of what has come before.

Efrayim and Menashe are the first of Israel to be born and raised outside the land of their people. The fact that they do not disappear, but become part of the story of the tribes of Israel, can be seen as a victory over the forgetfulness of Diaspora distance. 

Yet forgetting seems out of place here, unless what we are meant to bless here is the necessity of forgetting what is better lost to time so that we can remember what we need to keep. Loss is, after all, human; how do we know, though, what we are meant to let go of? What should we be fighting with all our will to hold on to? How can loss lead to fruitfulness?

A midrashic tradition preserves a frightening warning regarding the stakes of this question in the story of the premature Exodus of the Efrayimites:

Ganun, one of the grandchildren of Efrayim, came and said, “the Holy Blessed One has been revealed to me, to lead you out of Egypt.” The children of Efrayim…took their wives and their sons, and they went forth from Egypt. The Egyptians pursued after them, and slew of them 200,000. – Pirke dRabi Eliezer 48.4

At the wrong time, even the right idea is wrong. A blessing is no blessing if it brings about a curse. This is how we know that the destruction of Gaza and the Jewish violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is wrong. The Jews involved insist that they are seeking the blessing of being in the land which is our historical homeland, but the horrifying ongoing slaughter of innocents declares clearly that this “right idea” is terribly wrong.

But the land of the West Bank was the land promised to the Patriarchs; are we supposed to forget them, and give up Hebron, Shekhem, Beer Sheva? Perhaps the answer is yes. Perhaps we bless our children by Efrayim and Menashe instead of by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for that very reason?

Our entire ethical tradition warns us that following leadership which is not righteous will lead to ruin. Allowing that which is considered ethically wrong by our own Jewish tradition will never bring us to a righteous place. צדק צדק תרדוף Tzedek, tzedek tirdof, “justice, justice you must pursue” (Deut. 18.16) is understood by our Sages to mean that we must have just means and just ends, and that ends do not in themselves justify means.

Efrayim and Menashe, fruitfulness and forgetting, go hand in hand. We are only blessed when we recognize and respect the message they can only convey together.

Shabbat Hanukkah 5786: What Are The Odds?

“Courage is knowing you’re licked, and remaining steadfast until the very end anyway.” – Harper Lee

One of those who didn’t stop to calculate her odds was Judith of Betulia, a heroine whose story is associated with Hanukkah. Her bravery was a favorite subject of Renaissance art. Pictured: Caravaggio’s “Judith beheading Holofernes” (Creative Commons)

This is the Shabbat of Hanukkah 5786. Every year it is dark when we load up our Hanukkah menorahs with candles, or oil, or whatever we’re using. This holy day period invokes sun in the midst of rain and snow, light in the dark days of winter. To light a single candle, we remind each other, is to banish the darkness. Every night we light another candle, reminding ourselves that the days will once again grow longer, and the light of our days grow greater.

Hanukkah started on December 14 at sundown; it seems not inappropriate that, this year, the last day of Hanukkah is on the shortest, darkest day of the year.  This year, our celebration of Hanukkah was marked with tragedy already on its first day. Fifteen people were murdered, and forty-one more – including children – hospitalized, in an attack on a Hanukkah gathering in Australia. 

May the memory of the murdered remain as a blessing; may those who suffer be soothed. May the heroism of Syrian-Australian Ahmed al-Ahmed, who disarmed one of the shooters and was shot in the process, be lifted up and may he find complete healing.

This year, lighting a single candle, followed each night by another small light, seems either especially brave, or especially naive. 

This year, our spiritual resilience requires better support than the comfort food of latkes and sufganiyot. 

This year, I invite you to consider the details of the Hanukkah story. In reality, there was no “miracle of oil” and no divine intervention; the story is human, and complicated. One of the strands of the real story is about the intraJewish fight over Hellenistic culture; another is about the willingness to defy evil in the face of overwhelming odds. 

Where does a person find the courage to do anything at all, much less act heroically, when all seems dire? Our special haftarah for this Shabbat of Hanukkah contains a famous phrase often invoked at times like this: “not by might, nor by power, but by spirit”. 

זֶ֚ה דְּבַר־ה’ אֶל־זְרֻבָּבֶ֖ל לֵאמֹ֑ר לֹ֤א בְחַ֙יִל֙ וְלֹ֣א בְכֹ֔חַ כִּ֣י אִם־בְּרוּחִ֔י אָמַ֖ר ה’ צְבָאֽוֹת׃ 

“This is the word of HaShem to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit—said HaShem of Hosts.  (Zekharyah 3.6)

In other words, the prophet is saying that we should rely neither upon government action (Rashi) nor some special protected status (Abravanel), but only upon HaShem’s רוח “ru’akh”. This ancient Hebrew word means “spirit” as well as “wind” and can refer as well to feeling or attitude. 

Since the term ru’akh can refer to the human being as well as the Hashem, in which the human is made, it follows that we are being told to rely upon that aspect of ourselves which is most like HaShem. Zekharyah helpfully supplies a definition for us later in his prophecies:

אֵ֥לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֖ים אֲשֶׁ֣ר תַּֽעֲשׂ֑וּ דַּבְּר֤וּ אֱמֶת֙ אִ֣ישׁ אֶת־רֵעֵ֔הוּ אֱמֶת֙ וּמִשְׁפַּ֣ט שָׁל֔וֹם שִׁפְט֖וּ בְּשַׁעֲרֵיכֶֽם׃ וְאִ֣ישׁ ׀ אֶת־רָעַ֣ת רֵעֵ֗הוּ אַֽל־תַּחְשְׁבוּ֙ בִּלְבַבְכֶ֔ם וּשְׁבֻ֥עַת שֶׁ֖קֶר אַֽל־תֶּאֱהָ֑בוּ כִּ֧י אֶת־כׇּל־אֵ֛לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֥ר שָׂנֵ֖אתִי נְאֻם־ה’

These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate—declares HaShem. – Zekharyah 8.16-17

It is understandable that in the wake of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre, some might descend into anger, or a desire for vengeance, or even maneuvering for political capital. But neither these choices, nor the reliance upon government funds to buy us bulletproof glass for our building, nor a groupthink majority attitude that forbids any one of us to fall out of lockstep, will support and sustain us in these dark times. Only divine ru’akh, remembering that we are created in the image of the Highest and are capable of acting in that image, will help us envision light in this darkness.

Acting for the world we wish to live in, rather than the world we have, is not dependent upon the odds that we will live to see that world. Just that it’s all that is worthy of our lives, and our courage.