Shabbat VaYigash: Stepping Away from the Past, Shaping the Future

“The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” – William Faulkner

The denouement of the Joseph saga occurs at the beginning of this week’s parashat VaYigash. The great dramatic moment comes when Judah courageously steps forward. He does so to accept the burden of the family’s great hidden sin: that of the brothers’ selling Joseph into slavery and hiding it from their father.  Judah gives himself up for the sake of them all, but especially for the father who, tragically, does not have it in his heart to ever be able to repay or even recognize this gift of love and family responsibility.

Judah’s act has been seen primarily by Jewish tradition as the proof of the extraordinary nature of the tribal line associated with him, the royal one; that of the once and forever line of the kings of Israel. His willingness to step first into a breach reminds one of Nakhshon ben Ammindav, his descendent, who is unafraid to leap into the Sea of Reeds even before the waters are miraculously parted during the Exodus from Egypt. 

Jewish tradition looks for family resemblances in this way, echoes and answers that reverberate over many generations. This is in line with ancient Israelite belief that we are all connected, and our acts affect each other over time and space. To understand the universe in this way is to see that we act within a sense of

אֵ֣ל קַנָּ֔א פֹּ֠קֵד עֲון אָבֹ֧ת עַל־בָּנִ֛ים עַל־שִׁלֵּשִׁ֥ים וְעַל־רִבֵּעִ֖ים לְשֹׂנְאָֽ֑י

“A passionate holiness, within which the sins of ancestors 

reverberate onto their descendants 

for three, and even four, generations” – Exodus 20.5

Judah is the great grandson of Sarah and Abraham, the grandson of Rivkah and Isaak, the son of Leah and Jacob. His life reflects not only the brave boundary crossing of Abraham but also the trauma of Isaak’s Akedah, Jacob’s theft of birthright and blessing from Esau, and the massacre of the men of Shekhem by his brothers Shimon and Levi. His step forward is a step away from all that inchoate pain, and toward wholeness. It is breath-taking, because Judah here is both wounded and whole. Where his father limps and lies, Judah strides toward the truth.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks ז״ל attributes the reinterpretation of the past which becomes possible at this point to Joseph, who offers the brothers the perspective that instead of guilt at their own acts, they should see Joseph’s presence in Egypt as HaShem’s doing, for a higher purpose.

But Joseph’s generous reshaping of the impact of the years of suffering cannot take place until Judah takes the fateful step. Not unlike many of us, who limp through life in inherited pain until one day we are able to break the pattern, Judah steps out of and away from the family path. 

Today is Asarah b’Tevet, the 10th of Tevet. This day has been observed as a (minor) fast day for many generations of Exile, because on this day over 2500 years ago the Babylonian Empire, besieging Jerusalem, breached the walls. It was the beginning of the end. How could we know that all these years later the day would be scarcely relevant, as Jerusalem is rebuilt and so much has happened to soften that past horror?

We cannot erase the past, nor can we bury it. Both our Jewish tradition and any good therapist will agree: if you do not recognize your past consciously, it will demand your recognition subconsciously. All we can do is act now to set that past in a larger, redeeming perspective. As long as we live, such acts – we call them mitzvot – are constantly possible. Each small act of kindness, of wholeness, of love, defies the darkness of our isolation from each other in this 9th month of pandemic. And it will redeem our perspective in ways that will define these days in ways we cannot possibly imagine now.

Shabbat Miketz: Survival Tip for 2020 – Remember Who You Are

s/he was bullied by siblings.

s/he was terrorized by being thrown in a pit and ignored.

s/he was sold into slavery in a strange society.

s/he knew neither the language nor the customs.

s/he was accused of crime s/he had not committed.

s/he was thrown in a dungeon and forgotten.

In parashat Miketz, Joseph models for us the self-reliance and courage needed to survive when one is powerless and adrift. Jews wandering in Exile have long identified with powerlessness, being blamed for terrible crimes we didn’t commit (blood libel being one), and being confronted with languages and customs we don’t understand, but yet must somehow make our way through in order to survive.

Many generations of Jewish commentators have seen in the Joseph story clues for our own survival. Our sense of difference may come from Jewish historical experience and epigenetic trauma, and may be sharpened by further experiences of exile, such as being Queer, Black, converted, Sephardi, returning, or female in a cis white heterosexual male-dominated Ashkenazi Jewish society such as that considered normative in the United States.

Our ancestors look closely at the Joseph story and derive lessons for us that resonate with profound truth over much human history. As we enter the darkest days of the year in the northern hemisphere of the planet, may their words stay with us:

  • Let there be light is the first obligation of Judaism. As we are taught to see ourselves as shut’fei Elohim, partners with HaShem, these first words of Creation are an ongoing mitzvah for us to fulfill. To the dark corners of our fears, let us bring light to each other by a simple email or phone call, a word or a gesture.
  • They continued to give their children Hebrew names. How did our ancestors finally merit to be rescued from the darkness of Egyptian slavery? Just as Joseph modeled when finally a parent, giving their offspring the Hebrew names Efrayim and Menashe, so we continue to preserve this custom that links us to our people, with names (Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, and more) that come from elsewhere, and remind us of who we are.
  • Our sources point out that in a way significant for us, Joseph was greater than even Moshe Rabbenu, Moshe our teacher, because Moshe concealed his identity (see Exodus 2.19, where the daughters of Reuel call him an Egyptian and he does not correct them) but in our parashah Joseph, when brought before Pharaoh powerless and without allies, nevertheless proclaims their identity at the first opportunity (Genesis 41.16).

Joseph’s feelings of abandonment are expressed in the names of their children (Gen. 41.51-52) “I have forgotten my parental home” and “I thrive in the land of my affliction.” Yet Joseph remains rock steady in knowing where they came from.

This is the key to keeping our own balance in these dark days: remember where you came from. Hold on to who you are, even if no one else validates you. Hang in there: keep learning (no one’s perfect) and keep the light of hope burning. Hanukkah may be over but the light we kindle together never goes out.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Ariel

…one more thought: some have designated a Ninth Night of Hanukkah for this year in honor of the Shamash, that candle that does all the work of bringing light to the others yet is not itself representative of a day. In honor of all those who have done the essential work of bringing light, health care, food, shelter, and compassion to others in this terrible year, we honor the Shamash. You can light nine candles, or you can add one more candle to your Shabbat lights, to honor the light brought by the faithful Shamash and all those symbolized by it.

Letter to a Young Jew

I’m thrilled that you got in touch to ask me about your discomfort with the prayer for Israel we did in the shul during High Holy Days. I’m also very happy to hear that you are finding ways to express your sense of Jewish identity in resistance to the evils of our day. Jews, with our natural bend toward community, have created a number of activist organizations on our local scene: Matzah Bloc, Alberta Shul, Bend the Arc’s Moral Minyan, Never Again Action, and TischPDX, among others. In all of these I appreciate the chance to show up as a Jew in support of other marginalized communities, and to make common cause to struggle for justice.


To me all this comes from a very Jewish place, and my protest ethics are informed by Jewish sources both rabbinic and prophetic: 


1. It was the Israelite prophets who insisted that we must support the vulnerable or our society is doomed, so I feel that my actions when I protest ICE or police brutality are directly in line with Isaiah or Jeremiah or Huldah. Those prophets were declaring their fiery words directly at the government of the kingdom of Israel. Jeremiah was arrested for sedition and thrown in jail by the king who wanted to him. Elie Weisel (may he rest in peace) was famous for saying that Jews “speak truth to power” and it’s an ancient Jewish ethic.


2. Jews do not condemn human beings, we condemn human behavior. In a famous ancient story, a rabbi (Meir) is assaulted by a gang and subsequently prays for their deaths. His partner, also a rabbi (Bruriah), asks how Meir can possibly believe such a prayer could be acceptable. Rather, she counsels, he should pray for those who do evil to repent – so he does. We pray for the end of evil, not the end of evil-doers.
Thus the Jewish liturgy includes prayers for the U.S. government and the Israeli government. Not that they should prosper in their wickedness, but to speak our optimism that every human being, created in the image of G*d, is capable of evil, and of turning from evil and doing good. 


Jewish prayer has a lot of purposes. Maybe you remember the rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof who insisted that there is a blessing for everyone and everything? his students ask him, if that’s so, what’s the blessing for the Czar (under whom Jews were massacred regularly). He offers the immortal line “may G*d bless and keep the Czar…far away from us.” Prayer is not agreement. It’s review, it’s musing, it’s sometimes a cry of anger against G*d, it’s sometimes disgust. To care enough about good to be disgusted by evil is also a kind of prayer. Apathy is the only non-prayer I know.


3. I’m also informed by the Jewish teaching that all is one, that all existence is connected. As Alice Walker wrote, I know that if I cut a tree my arm will bleed. All of us are part of the same living continuum. It’s a cop out, according to Jewish mystical tradition, to say that someone or some thing is demonic, i.e. beyond the bounds of human. It’s a disinclination to recognize that we are all capable of evil, an frankly all it does is draw the circle of our capacity smaller than it actually is. We can only defeat evil when we understand and own it as being a human failing that we can understand and recognize.


One final note. On the Left, Jews are usually asked to leave their Jewish particularity at the door. Events are held on Shabbat or Jewish holy days, because we’re a very small group, percentage-wise, in every social justice movement. Many Jews are not entirely proud of their Jewishness anyway. 


It’s important, ethically, to me to distinguish between protest against the Israeli government and the occupation, and condemnation of every Israeli. There are groups in Israel/Palestine in which Palestinians and Jews work arm in arm together for peace and justice; there are bilingual schools which teach Arabic and Jewish culture and language together. 


Blanket dismissal of any people – our own included – is just bigotry. Lumping a state’s government in with its people is sloppy and wrong (anyone who condemns the protesters in Portland because of their Mayor is similarly wrong). As a Jew, I believe it is a mitzvah to work for social justice in Israel, just as I do in the U.S. I’m not pro- or anti-U.S. or pro- or anti-Israel; I’m anti-cruelty, anti-occupation, anti-oppression anywhere and everywhere. It’s in the U.S. where I am a citizen, and Israel where my people comes from, where I must make those words live.

May these days of Hanukkah bring warmth and illumination for you in the midst of all this darkness of fear and hatred.


Some reading if you’re into it:

Reflections on Being a Jewish Activist:

https://medium.com/@YotamMarom/toward-the-next-jewish-rebellion-bed5082c52fc

The difference between criticizing Israel and being antisemitic:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-to-tell-when-criticism-of-israel-is-actually-anti-semitism/2018/05/17/cb58bf10-59eb-11e8-b656-a5f8c2a9295d_story.html

and intersectionality:

https://www.politicalresearch.org/2017/06/29/skin-in-the-game-how-antisemitism-animates-white-nationalism

Shabbat VaYeshev: Justice by the Light of the Hanukkah Menorah

You may very well be wrong in your first impression – Love, Tamar

In the second year of the Triennial Cycle of Torah reading, we find that the focus of the parashat hashavua (“Torah reading of the week”) is the story of Tamar in Bereshit, also called Genesis, in chapter 38. After the strange silence imposed upon Dinah in last week’s parashah, the narrative of a woman who succeeds against misogynist assumptions and coercion is all the more striking.

One need not be female-identified to empathize with Tamar’s predicament. She is married in to the family of Judah ben Leah v’Jacob, to his oldest son Eyr. When Eyr dies suddenly and inexplicably, the Israelite tradition expects her to be married to Eyr’s brother Onan – who also dies. Alarmed, assuming the worst about Tamar, Judah does not fulfill the legal expectation that the next (and last) son Shelah be now joined with Tamar. Having no way to force the issue, Tamar is relegated back to her family of origin. Her life is now on hold, and over time it becomes clear that Judah has no further thought of her. She is treated unjustly, and has no recourse within the system.

Because the law gives her no place to stand, Tamar goes around it in order to achieve justice. It requires courage and strength of will, but more, she has to act in ways that bring about condemnation from those who believe that acting legally is the only correct way to behave – even when there is no justice forthcoming.

Tamar forces the issue and achieves justice, but the oh so human story is messy and upsetting. It proceeds from injustice to injustice and from assumption to assumption until finally the truth is forced forth, and Judah recognizes that he was wrong.

The only way Tamar could get justice was to go outside the law in order to force the issue. The words of the second Hanukkah blessing come to mind: bayamim hahem bazman hazeh, “in those days as in these,” the situation is no different in our own days. Those who have no recourse within the system, who are held down and oppressed by it, will go around it to seek justice, if they have the courage and strength of will.

______________________________

My beloved companions in Jewish learning, I believe in the power of Torah study to help us understand the lessons of every modern story we learn. Tamar’s story offers insight into our own Jewish struggle against generations of oppression, which have brought about a certain wariness about government authority not only in Exile but in Israel. As surely as if she was lighting a Hanukkah menorah, Tamar can also shed a necessary, holy light upon the struggle of Portland Oregon anti-government activists such as those protesting gentrification at the Red House.

Please see the link below to the recent coverage by OPB, the best explanation I have seen of the situation. Use your Torah study skills; read closely.

To be a Jew is to ask questions beneath the surface of a narrative. Such digging is called midrash in Torah study; let it guide our reading of the newspaper as well. Jews, more than any other culture, know that the surface story is only the simplest, most misleading aspect of any narrative. Remembering Tamar and her wisdom as we try to make sense of the struggle for justice in our own day, and even the nature of what people define as justice, is not just useful. It is the Jewish path, and it is the only path to the wisdom of Judah, who when presented with the fuller story realized that he was wrong. It is the greatest courage of all to be open to learning when we already know we’re right, and to learn how to say “no, she is right and I am wrong.”

Or, as I am fond of quoting the Rambam, Maimonides, “teach your tongue to say  I do not know and you will learn.”

By the light of Hanukkah may we all see the path to justice for ourselves and our community.

Shabbat Shalom and Hanukkah sameakh!

Rabbi Ariel

see: Understanding the Eviction Blockade

Shabbat VaYishlakh: Becoming Whole By Becoming Oneself

There’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in – Leonard Cohen ז״ל

In this week’s parashah, the eponymous ancestor of the People of Israel is given the name Israel. The deceiving, conniving, too smart by half Jacob has apparently achieved some kind of transition.

The people Israel has for two thousand years developed our sense of identity as a people through learning the lives and lessons of our ancestors. In order to do so, those of us who are not male (or the other things the text might be seen to assume are normative) have had to learn how to do Midrash – to look beneath the surface of things – in order to relate to the essential humanity beneath what seems to be a patriarchal text.

Patriarchal but not without matriarchal moments; heterosexual but not without its moments of queerness; spiritually uplifting sometimes but more often a tale of mistakes, venality, and “stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”*

Jacob this week is stumbling toward his destiny, a trail that leads directly to his brother Esau, whom he has cheated and lied to, and then run away from. In so doing he becomes a paradigm of the necessary steps we still know we must take in order to achieve atonement; at-one-ment, reconciliation not only with another but, in the process, becoming more whole in oneself.

Such work requires difficult struggle. This week’s Torah recounts that struggle one night, which has been variously understood by many of us over the generations: the Torah itself refers to “a man” but the prophet Hosea says it was an angel (Hosea 12.4-5). Our Rabbinic Sages declared that it was Samael, whom they called Esau’s “guardian angel” and a source of evil (Rashi, peace be upon him, Gen.32.35).

Isn’t this just like ourselves? As the people, so the individual: before I finally locate the blame appropriately on myself, I will blame everyone else for my fault. My yetzer hara’ will convince me that I myself am blameless but just unlucky. These stages of denial lead me away from seeing how much I really struggled with the evil of blaming others, because all I see is the evil I have experienced.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, peace be upon him, taught that Jacob’s real problem is that he does not know himself, and does not value himself. That is why he steals blessings and birthrights. But our tradition rules that you can’t bless HaShem with a stolen lulav on Sukkot; our people has learned that stolen blessings are really useless. A blessing only applies to the one who fits it.

This week Jacob wrestles, really with himself in all those guises: the “angel” is his better nature, the “samael” is his yetzer hara’, the evil impulse we all feel and struggle with. Jacob wrestles with Israel, the person he is meant to be, most of all. 

It’s not so easy to grow. It’s terribly difficult to apologize, and make amends. But it is also incredibly powerful.

Jacob returns to Esau by stages. First he sends to Esau the material blessing he took, a gift of hundreds of sheep and goats, cows and camels and donkeys. Then, when he meets him, he returns the blessing of primacy: “be lord over your brothers,” (Gen.27.29). Jacob bows repeatedly to Esau, calling him “my lord.” 

And Jacob leaves that place of denouement in peace, which is to say he is whole, although he is limping from the struggle to become himself. Our ancestors learned that there is nothing as whole as a broken spirit, and that the truly repentant stand in a higher, more discerning place than those who have never struggled.

May it be a Shabbat of peace and wholeness for us. Hazak Hazak v’nithazek, be strong and let us strengthen each other.

________

*Churchill, according to Sacks

Shabbat Toldot: Naming our Transgender Children

Today, Friday November 20, is Transgender Day of Remembrance. During Portland’s observance (last night on the eve of the day) we called the names of those who were murdered in the U.S. during this past year for no reason other than their transgender identity. 

We remember them, and mourn the loss of these irreplaceable Images of G*d. They existed in all their personal created glory, and we refuse to let them disappear into the void of nonexistence. We say their names. 

In Hebrew, the verb for “read” is קרא k.r.’ which also means to ‘say out loud.” In ancient Jewish tradition, to read was to speak audibly; there was no “silent reading.” The power in naming is in hearing as well as seeing. The first humans became partners with HaShem in the act of creation by naming the creatures that they encountered. To name is to bring fully into existence; to name is to recognize relationship between the namer and the named.  

To name someone or something is to declare that there is reality here. Here is a reflection of the All in the part.

We are sometimes wary of naming, sometimes afraid, and sometimes simply insensible to what we have not recognized. Peeling back the interpretive layers of what we assume, we can find astonishing depths.

The Torah is often astonishingly coincidentally relevant to our own circumstances, and this week is one of those times. Last week in parashat Haye Sarah we watched Rebekah, daughter of Betuel, as the center of the narrative’s action, from welcoming the stranger to deciding her own future. This week in parashat Toldot she is still the focus as she acts to decide the future of her family – and the Jewish people. Judging by her acts, Rebekah behaves more like a patriarch than Isaac.

But we don’t tend to see that; our ability to see and to name Rebekah as head of her family is hampered by our assumptions. She must be a wife and mother, and any other impression must be an exception to the rule.

But what if we recognize her full reality, and Isaac’s too? Mystical speculation on the nature of femaleness and maleness led to the insight that Isaac was transgender:

It is known that when Isaak was born, he was born with the soul of a female, and through the Akedah (the binding) he got a male soul … this is known according to the Sod (Secret/Mysticism) of the cycling of souls – that at times, a female would be in a male body, because of gilgal (the cycling of souls) [Or HaHayim, 18th century Hasidic commentary]

Ancient Jewish tradition is conversant with much more than a rigid gender binary. The research of Rabbi Elliot Kukla shows that at least six gender expressions were part of normal life and legislation in Talmudic times (listed below).

We can only talk about what we recognize; we are able to name only that with which we are in relationship. Let this be a cautionary lesson as well as an encouragement: even as we are taught to learn and recognize and interact, so we are unable to do so if we do not have the opportunity to have naming experience. We can’t name Rivkah if we don’t really know her. Let this Shabbat be a chance to learn more about the glorious spectrum of gender identity and sexual expression throughout our world, and the Jewish ways we learn to respect all Created Beings.

hazak hazak v’nithazek, may we be strong and strengthen one another!

shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Ariel

________________________

  1. An androgynos has both “male” and “female” sexual characteristics, and there are 149 references in Mishna and Talmud (1st-8th Centuries CE); 350 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes (2nd -16th Centuries CE). 
  2. A tumtum’s sexual characteristics are indeterminate or obscured. 181 references in Mishnah and Talmud; 335 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes. 
  3. A person identified as “female” at birth but develops “male” characteristics at puberty and is infertile is called an aylonit (80 references in Mishna and Talmud; 40 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes). 
  4. A saris is identified as “male” at birth but develops “female” characteristics as puberty and/or is lacking a penis (156 references in Mishna and Talmud; 379 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes).
  5. Nekevah, usually translated as “female.” 
  6. Zakhar, usually translated as “male.”

A Prayer for Healing in the Time of COVID-19

Source of Healing, help us find healing.

We seek strength for our spirit, resilience

that will carry us through this plague in peace.

Compassion that saves us,

Heal the body of everyone struck
with the threatening virus,

and heal the souls of all who suffer.

Remember those who have died.

Heal us and we shall be healed,
save us and we shall be saved,

Source of our strength and our hope.

Creator of freedom, inspiration for all who are bound up in these days of quarantine,

As the gates of our homes are shut,
open for us the gates of our hearts.

Liberate us from our fear and anxiety.

May the great wind that hovers over the abyss bless us to find a place to stand firm in holy presence

with open hearts where there must be closed doors.

In the Presence of holiness we are taught that nothing is too difficult.

The Source of both death and life

Is the source of wholeness and peace.

We offer up our gratitude and praise
for healing, for wholeness, for hope.

רוֹפֵא חוֹלִים, רְפָא נָא לָנוּ.

הַגְבֵּר אֶת רוּחֵנוּ וְטַע בָּנוּ חֹסֶן

שֶיַּעֲבִירֵנוּ בַּמַּגֵּפָה הַזֹּאת בְּשָׁלוֹם.

רַחְמָנָא לִיצְּלַן, רְפָא-נָא
לְגוּפֵי הָהֻכִּים בַּנְּגִיף,

רַחֵם-נָא עַל נַפְֹשוֹתָם הַסּוֹבְלִים,

זְכוֹר-נָא בִּצְרוֹר הַחַיִים
אֶת נִֹשְמָתָם שֶהָלְכוּ לְעוֹלָמָם.

רְפָאֵנוּ וְנֵרָפֵא, הוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ וְנִוָֹּשֵעַ,
כִּי גוֹאֵל חָזָק אָתָּה.

מַתִּיר אֲסוּרִים, עָזְרֵנוּ בִּימֵי הֶסְגֵּר.

בְּעֵת נְעִילַת שַעֲרֵי בָּתֵינוּ,
פְּתַח לָנוּ אֶת שַעֲרֵי לִבֵּנוּ.

שַחְרְרֵנוּ מִכָּל פַּחַד וַחֲרָדָה.

הָרוּחַ הַמְּרַחֶפֶת עַל תֹּהוּ וָבֹהוּ

בַּרְכִינוּ בְּמָקוֹם נִיצָּב לְפָנַיךְ וְלִפְנִים,

בִּלְבָבוֹת פְּתוּחִים עַל יָד
הַדְּלָתוֹת הַסְּגוּרוּת.

עֵין הַגְּבוּרוֹת, מִי דוֹמֶה-לָךְ? 

מֶלֶךְ מֵמִית וּמְחַיֶּה וּמַצְמִיחַ יְֹשוּעָה.

בְּרוּכָה אתְּ, עֵין הָרְפוּאוֹת
וְרַבָּה לְהוֹשִׁיעַ.

inspired by R. Peretz Rodman

For Those Who Resist

dedicated to my comrades in our streets and those in our hearts

For those who resist

For those who plan and strategize

For those who gather at a moment’s notice

We give thanks

For those who serve as witnesses

For those who are civil and disobedient

We give thanks

For those who speak up at local meetings

For those who carry signs and snacks and first aid

We give thanks

For those who hold tight to their protest buddy

For those who bring their medic skills to give aid

We give thanks

For those who document and record

For those who de-escalate

We give thanks

For those who contribute in bursts

For those who make it their life’s work

We give thanks

For those who do their work at home

For those who march on legs or on wheels

We give thanks

For those who refuse to budge

For those who organize votes

We give thanks

For those whose hearts are breaking

For those whose anger overwhelms

We give thanks

For those who maintain the ability to love

For those who find courage they never knew they had

We give thanks

For those who gather with friends and allies

For those who stand alone

For those who resist

We give thanks

Adapted from A Prayer for Today by Trisha Arlin 

Shabbat Lekh-L’kha: Making Light in Darkness

(image: close up in Torah scroll of Genesis 1.4 ויבדל אלהים בין האור ובין החשך G*d divided between the light and the darkness.)

Shalom Shir Tikvah learning community,

It’s getting darker every day now. How shall we trust our footsteps when we can’t see them? Where is the light that will dispel this hoshekh, this unnatural darkness that weighs us down?

This week we see that Abraham had precisely the questions we have.

As we make our way through the second year of the Triennial Cycle we move into the details of the more famous stories which make up the title images of each parashah. In the case of Lekh–L’kha, there is a famous introductory image of the fearless Abraham leaving everything familiar behind and setting off into a completely unknown future. 

This year, however, we are in the weeds. Abraham is a transient, a homeless wanderer, a landless stranger in a strange land in which he has had to fight to keep his family safe. Abraham and Sarah have no children, and no sure sense of their future. 

Then one day, the Torah relates in our parashah, the Presence of HaShem comes to Abraham:

אַחַ֣ר ׀ הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֗לֶּה הָיָ֤ה דְבַר־יְהוָה֙ אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם בַּֽמַּחֲזֶ֖ה לֵאמֹ֑ר אַל־תִּירָ֣א אַבְרָ֗ם אָנֹכִי֙ מָגֵ֣ן לָ֔ךְ שְׂכָרְךָ֖ הַרְבֵּ֥ה מְאֹֽד׃ 

Some time later, the word of HaShem came to Abram in a vision saying “Fear not, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great.” 

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אַבְרָ֗ם אֲדֹנָ֤י יֱהוִה֙ מַה־תִּתֶּן־לִ֔י וְאָנֹכִ֖י הוֹלֵ֣ךְ עֲרִירִ֑י 

But Abram said, “O HaShem, what can You give me, seeing that I shall die childless?” (Genesis 15.1-2)

The commentator Rashi explains that the word ערירי ‘ariri “childless” here really means “rootless.” The further implication in ancient Hebrew is that all one’s work is for nothing unless one creates something that outlasts one.

That ancient anxiety which defines the meaning of one’s life as that which outlives it has turned many of us into builders for the future, and even we Jews, who are taught that there is no sure existence other than this one, occupy ourselves in planning for the future and peopling it, in our imagination and, for some of us, with our offspring.

But what do we do in uncertain times when the future is not assured? If our work is only for the future, how can we possibly value the present moment for itself?

The haftarah for Shabbat Lekh-l’kha seems to speak directly to us in these moments of existential uncertainty: 

לָ֤מָּה תֹאמַר֙ יַֽעֲקֹ֔ב וּתְדַבֵּ֖ר יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל נִסְתְּרָ֤ה דַרְכִּי֙ מֵֽיְהוָ֔ה וּמֵאֱלֹהַ֖י מִשְׁפָּטִ֥י יַעֲבֽוֹר׃ 

Why do you say, O Jacob, Why declare, O Israel, “My way is hid from HaShem, My cause is ignored by my G*d”? (Isaiah 40.27)

Isaiah underscores what HaShem is trying to say to Abraham in the parashah: Trust is All. And so we ask, trust in what?

Not the future, which is uncertain. 

Only in ourselves, and each other, and our shared path – a three-part strength that creates a light strong enough to dispel the darkness around us.

All our lives are rehearsals for the moment when we need to know in our souls what to do and why. I’ve always felt that Jews are particularly lucky in that we have a spiritual mandate of doing and connecting which is always inviting us in. (When I lived and worked in Ukraine in the mid 1990s I met post-Soviet citizens who no longer knew who they were; the Jews with whom I lived knew exactly who they were, and what they could do.)

Community gatherings for learning and prayer and doing kindness can become meaningful in themselves to you, not for some future purpose but for blessing this day with the light that you yourself can create.  Through your engagement in the mitzvot that structure the acts and ethics of Jewish life you create the light of meaning not only for yourself, but for the person next to you who needs it as badly as you do. 

Now matters. This moment is all. What is the mitzvah you can do right now? If you do not know, ask. Believe in your ability to bring light to us all enough to ask.

Abraham went on after the moment of questioning the meaning of his life. He learned to trust in the path he was on. Because of this, we are taught, he became a source of light not only for his companions but for the Source of Life, as we see later in this same parashah:

וַיְהִ֣יאַבְרָ֔םבֶּן־תִּשְׁעִ֥יםשָׁנָ֖הוְתֵ֣שַׁעשָׁנִ֑יםוַיֵּרָ֨איְהוָ֜האֶל־אַבְרָ֗םוַיֹּ֤אמֶראֵלָיו֙אֲנִי־אֵ֣לשַׁדַּ֔יהִתְהַלֵּ֥ךְלְפָנַ֖יוֶהְיֵ֥התָמִֽים׃ 

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, HaShem (finally) appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am the Source of your Creativity. Walk in My ways and you will be whole.”

And the Midrash explains that what HaShem was really saying here is this:

בּוֹא וְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנָי

“Come, and light the way before Me.” (Bereshit Rabbah 30)

The multi-wick flame of the havdalah candle reminds us that our shared lights are brighter than any individual can generate. Come, and let us light the way together.

Shabbat Noakh: Time to be stiff-necked

Once upon a time I was asked, “Rabbi, who was it who first called the Jews ‘stiff-necked’? It seems anti-Semitic.” I had to laugh. “Well, actually, it was G*d, in Exodus 32.9.”

It seems to be the one thing that friends, enemies, and HaShem all agree upon, from Biblical to Talmudic to much later days even unto our own: the Jews are stubborn. Some have said it insultingly, others admiringly. 

A story from the Talmud:

Two Jews were taken captive in the Galilee, and their captor was walking behind them. One captive said to the other, ‘the camel walking ahead of us is blind in one eye.’ The slave driver said ‘hey, you stiff-necked people, how do you know this?’ They replied, ‘because the camel is eating the foliage along the way only on one side, the side it can see.”

Why did their captor call them “stiff-necked” at that moment? Because, says one commentary, despite their suffering, they were obstinate enough to spend time on a brain-teaser. Despite conditions of exile and slavery, they continued to be discerning and wise.

We Jews have been known for millennia as a stiff-necked people. 

It’s a quality that we very much need right now. To quote Rabbi Kalonymos Kalman Shapira, known as the Piacezner Rabbi, who taught in the Warsaw Ghetto and perished at Treblinka (his yahrzeit is today, 5 Heshvan, corresponding this year to October 23):

Being stiff-necked is one of the most transcendent virtues. Whoever is not stubborn and obstinate is inconstant and irresolute. In dealing with a person who cannot make up their mind, it may be impossible to arrive at any conclusion. In particular, when faced with temptation or a test of resolve, the inconstant one will fail. An obstinate person, on the other hand, is straightforward when spoken to. The more stiff-necked and stubborn a person is, the more they will endure, even if their conviction comes to be tested in some way.

We are being tested, my beloveds; we will continue to be tested in the days to come. As Jews we have a great teaching before us. Tests come and go, just as empires do; but there is that which does not change. To be stiff-necked is to hold on to that which we know is immutably true and holy, and be strengthened by that steadfastness.

What does it mean to be stiff-necked in our time? For some of us, it was the determination to sing even louder on the Shabbat two years ago when some of us were killed in a shul in Pittsburgh during Shabbat davening. In a few days we will observe the second yahrzeit of the Tree of Life massacre; on October 27 there will be a national virtual memorial hosted by Bend The Arc which you can join: https://www.bendthearc.us/1027 

To be stiff-necked, it seems, is to hold on to that which is just, and kind, and holy, even when we are experiencing personal, and justifiable, fear. It is to be determined not to let the fear win. It is to continue to find ways to reach out, to support, to give, even through a mask, even through fear. It is to care about each other even as the waters of the great Flood rise.

To be stiff-necked, teaches the Piacezner, is to be immutable, just as HaShem is: “I am HaShem; I have not changed” (Malakhi 3.6). Regardless of what happens to us, that which is holy will remain holy; that which is true will remain true. In all the chaos, such as the great destruction experienced by Noakh in our parashat hashavua, what holds us steady? The Rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto maintains that it is the great stubbornness of the Jewish people. The slave driver of the Talmudic story “had not realized that the Jews were so stiff-necked that they could still think clearly and cleverly even in the midst of slavery and pain.”

To be stiff-necked and continue functioning as practicing Jews, to endure and to perform the mitzvot incumbent upon us, involves a high level of stubbornness. In addition to this, to actually engage fully in study of the Torah, entering deeply into the knowing of it, is an even greater challenge – for regardless of the troubles besetting us, there is no great difficulty in putting on tefillin or fulfilling other practical mitzvot. But to study Torah, and especially to enter into the depths of the Torah, is extremely difficult.

We can’t compare ourselves to those who came before, neither Jews in the Roman Empire nor Jews in the Third Reich. What we face is not Noah’s Flood; we do not yet know what it is. All we can do in the face of the challenge of our own days is to carry on what they passed down to us: in the face of upheaval and the threat of worse, we can be stubborn. We can be stiff-necked Jews, in the best tradition of our ancestors. We can keep on doing tzedakah, studying Torah, singing loudly as we daven, and all the while believing in and working toward a better world. We can continue to declare that Mir Veln Zey Iberlebn – We Will Outlive Them.