Asara b’Tevet: Countdown to January 20 2017

Yesterday the countdown began, although you may not have noticed. Yesterday was Asara b’Tevet, a minor fast day in Judaism which marks the day on which the Babylonian Empire laid siege to the ancient walls of Jerusalem. It was created as a fast day because that day was the beginning of the end for the ancient Kingdom of Israel; the Babylonians destroyed the city and exiled our ancestors in 586 BCE.

“Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. And in the ninth year of his reign, on the 10th day of the 10th month Nebuchadnezzar moved against Jerusalem with his whole army. He besieged it; and they built towers against it all around. The city continued in a state of siege until the 11th year of King Zedekiah” (II Kings 25.1-2). According to the Prophet Ezekiel, we are commanded to mark the day forever after: “O mortal, record this date, this exact day; for this very day the king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem”  (Ezekiel 24.2).

Why remember an ancient harbinger of destruction? Recently our people has rationalized that we no longer need to remember this day – after all, Jerusalem is rebuilt.

But today the day glows with renewed relevance: the ancient history of yesterday, with its Jewish undertone of impending tragedy, offers itself to us in our own day. Yesterday marked the beginning of the onslaught of the Cabinet choices of the new administration – as good a place as any to stand as our own Asara b’Tevet. We do not know how this story will play out yet, because we will be a part of it, through our Resistance. But our Resistance as Jews is supported by a firm grounding in awareness of our history, and what it has taught us.

Our Countdown has 13 days, and this is Day 2. This is how Jews can proceed, and if you are in Portland Oregon I invite you to join me:

Day 4 Wednesday January 11 7pm –  Pub Talk: Judaism and Resistance at the Lucky Lab on Hawthorne. Learn with Rabbi Ariel Stone and Rabbi Tzvi Fischer of the Portland Kollel; get grounded in your people’s cultural wisdom. As Bend The Arc is saying: we’ve seen this before. Have a beer with us, meet some new companions in the Resistance.

Day 6 Friday January 13 6.30pm – Kley Kodesh; kirtan-style Erev Shabbat at Shir Tikvah Join JD Kleinke and explore the spiritual strength to resist found in ancient Jewish prayer in chant, meditation and song.

Day 8 Sunday January 15 3-5pm – Oregon Sanctuary Assembly, First Christian Church, 1314 SW Park Avenue. Join Shir Tikvah leadership in attending this gathering to learn strategies for fulfilling our tradition’s mitzvah “do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds” (Lev. 19.16). please rsvp.

Day 9 Monday January 16, Martin Luther King day 5-7pm – Unite by JewsPDX, hosted by Shir Tikvah. Join Jews from across Portland to learn from our people’s long tradition of political Resistance, listen to each other, and organize. Light fare and child care included, PLEASE do the mitzvah of registering your RSVP on this Eventbrite page to ensure an accurate headcount and check out the Facebook event, like and share. 

Day 13 Friday January 20, Yom Ta’anit – Jewish tradition demands that we take time to center ourselves in our strength, find our support in each other, and then go forward to do what must be done:

A Day of Fasting and Prayer 10.30am-3.30pm Shir Tikvah’s doors are open to you to join in prayer, to sit in meditation, to be inspired, to take a breath and renew your dedication to Resistance.

A Day of Rallying and Marches 4pm Inauguration Day Protest at Pioneer Courthouse Square (Shabbat begins at 4.43 and we will be there to invite Jews among those who rally to bless the light with us)

(this week) Shabbat VaYigash: One Step

Parashat VaYigash brings us to the denouement of the saga of Joseph and his brothers. Favoritism and jealousy have led to immature acts of aggression, lives have been torn apart and now it seems that all is lost. Joseph’s brothers stand before him all unaware that this is their brother; Joseph, who does recognize them, taunts and threatens. According to the Midrash, he is testing to see if they have grown beyond the vindictive criminals who nearly murdered him in their youth. He creates a scene of terror that causes the brothers to fear for their lives.
In these moments of parashat VaYigash we witness the courage that it takes to speak the truth. Joseph has thrown Shimon into the dungeon; now he threatens to keep Benjamin with him, a move that the brothers fear will kill their father. Judah sees a bad situation getting worse and has a choice: he can sit back and watch disaster overtake his brothers, but hope that he himself will be unscathed – or he can step forward into naked vulnerability and stop the process.
Judah steps forward. What does it take, to take that step? What does it mean?
This is a step away from waiting for someone else to do what you yourself believe must be done.
It is a step toward honesty – and also, probably, vilification from those who have not taken the step.
It is said that when the Israelites stood at the edge of the Sea waiting for it to split so that they could cross over safely, G*d told Moshe to urge them to enter the water, that only then would it part. Everyone stood together in fear, and then, according to the midrash, Nakhshon ben Amminadav leaped into the water.
Do you know what everyone else did then? They threw rocks at him. They were angry that he had gone first. Later that anger may have changed to admiration, or just jealousy of his courage. But there is something in us that attacks those who take a stand different from the group.
If you’ve been feeling stressed because you agree with Secretary Kerry’s speech on Israel this week, you know the feeling. Those of us who agree (some polls indicate that up to 60% of American Jews do) are liable to be attacked forcefully and with great emotion by those who will tell us that we are betraying Israel and making common cause with those who would destroy it. If you’re like me, you insist that you can be pro-Israel and, as a lover of Israel, fear that the Occupation will destroy Israel. Because our prophets taught us that a society which does not help the vulnerable will not survive; because the Torah teaches that if you pass your enemy’s ox or ass fallen under its load you must help to raise it; because evil is evil no matter who causes it – terrorists or good guys, and all the venal people who do that which they know is wrong who exist in the wide swath of in between.
It can sometimes happen that one person is right and everyone else is wrong. The hard part is that you can’t know that. You can only act in accordance with the ethics that strengthen the ground on which you stand. You can check them with your community companions, but sometimes you have to take a step all alone, without knowing what will happen – only that you feel vulnerable.
In the days to come we will stand together when we can – may we protect each other when we take that one step forward.

 

Hazak v’nit’hazek, be strong and let us strengthen each other,

(next week) Shabbat VaYehi: What’s the Last Word?

Our parashat hashavua this week concludes not only the Book Bereshit but also the saga of Jacob, Joseph and his brothers, and that entire generation. One of the most fascinating passages in the parashah describes Jacob, on his deathbed, and his last words to his sons. Although we refer to the scene as Jacob’s deathbed blessing, the words he offers are surprisingly prosaic and not so much about blessing as a recognition of the character of each son.

What our commentators find most interesting, though, is the unanswered promise implied by the first verse of the story:

 וַיִּקְרָא יַעֲקֹב, אֶל-בָּנָיו; וַיֹּאמֶר, הֵאָסְפוּ וְאַגִּידָה לָכֶם, אֵת אֲשֶׁר-יִקְרָא אֶתְכֶם, בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים.

Jacob called to his sons, and said: ‘Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the end of days. (Gen.49.1)

After this statement, one might expect Jacob to begin to foretell future events, perhaps to speak with his children of the slavery and eventual redemption of their descendants, or of future glories and struggles even further down the path.

But he doesn’t. A midrash explains that he was about to, and the Shekhinah appeared at the foot of his bed, rendering him speechless – and when he recovered, he had forgotten what he was about to tell. Telling the future, even if you can see it, is, we see, not part of Jewish tradition, but leads to a sort of unfair “gaming of the system.” Life is meant to be lived by devotion to down-to-earth, every day Jewish ethical behavior. One need not worry about tomorrow’s events if one is living a life of thoughtful mitzvot and compassionate acts as much as one can, day by day.

There is another way to understand the story: there need not be a gap between verse one and the continuation of the parashah at all. In a very real way, Jacob was telling his children what would befall them, not by telling them which horse might win at the races next Tuesday, but by describing to each one of them the character s/he had developed. In other words, the future is not something that happens to you while you wait passively for it to occur; the future is that which we experience as a result of our choices, and the impact they exert on the complex web of phenomena happening all around us, at all times.

Reuven broke basic rules of the home early; Simon and Levi were the type who maim animals for fun. The future which each one of them could expect would be indelibly marked by the acts of their past. Judah struggled and grew morally: as he himself awakened to a higher self, even learning to say “I was wrong, she was right” we might hope for leadership from him marked by the ability to respect others equally to the respect he expected for himself.

What will your last words be? It’s not such a strange thing to consider, since we are creating the self who will speak them every day of our lives, with each act and word. Everyone has a last day marked by the choices we’ve made – both as individuals and as communities, even as nations. No one, and nothing, lasts forever, and there is a greater ethical good in focusing on living each day with integrity, rather than letting ourselves sink to venal levels in fear that our days will not be long enough.

Fear is not a guiding light. It summons none of us to our best selves. Fear of the other is not a foreign or a domestic policy; whether the fear-mongering be from the U.S. president-elect or the Israeli prime minister, we as American Jews know this: either Jewish ethics are applicable in all circumstances, or they aren’t really ethics. The things we believe in will either strengthen us through this darkness, or they aren’t really beliefs. 

May our last words reflect a life of principle and of integrity. May we live our days, as best we can, as we want to be remembered – each and every one of them. And may we live them in a supportive community that allows us to deepen those beliefs until they will hold us through the worst of times.

hazak, hazak v’nithazek, let us be strong, be strong and strengthen each other

 

Shabbat Miketz: All of a Sudden, Change

You know where you stand, you know your path forward, you’ve spent time deciding what your future is going to look like. And then something happens, all of a sudden, and your plans….they get eaten up like the seven fat cows of Pharaoh’s dream.

Every year we read parashat Miketz on a Shabbat that coincides with Hanukkah. Every year Joseph is suddenly snatched from a dungeon and hurried before the Egyptian throne. Whatever he had imagined for his future disappeared suddenly, and a new reality confronted him. He was alone, surrounded by strangers, without resources.

Except for one very important resource. As the text tells us, when he is asked to show what he’s capable of, Joseph says clearly that his strength and his vision are not his, but the inspiration and blessing of his G*d.

What does he mean, and how can we relate?

Each of us is alone in our skin and in our dreams, as in our hopes and our fears. In the days and weeks since the U. S. presidential election, a growing sense of vulnerability has begun to eclipse the fairer aspects of the autonomy – the individuality – of our lives. While we may cherish our time alone, no one wants to be lonely. More, to be alone is to be isolated in ways that may be dangerous.

We know it: the only thing you can count on in life is that change happens. As the Yiddish folk saying goes, man tracht und Gott lakht, “we make plans and G*d laughs.” We can attempt to deny it and keep going in the path in which we’ve already invested our time and our dreams, but day by day we will only become more out of touch, and more pathetic.

I once officiated at the burial of a woman who lived alone. It was two weeks before they found her. Long walks by yourself in the woods or on the beach are one thing, but there is nothing uplifting about that kind of solitude that leaves you without support when you need it most.

I worked with the Jewish community of Kiev during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and saw Soviet citizens at a loss for a sense of identity and belonging in the post-Soviet era they were entering, very much against their will. Jews were among the minority groups who had an ironic advantage; the Jewishness that had been held against them in the Soviet system gave them a fallback – although they didn’t know much about it, their Jewish identity was there for the exploring. Jewish communities formed with great rapidity and passion in those days.

Like Joseph, those Jews were vulnerable and without resources – except for one. The memory of where they came from and its teachings was still there for them, and as they sought it out, it strengthened them. Through the communities they formed and the support they gave each other, they experienced inspiration and blessing. As the Jewish mystics would say, they evoked G*d’s presence in their midst, and thus they knew strength and support and hope.

The same thing happened to the Maccabees in the Hanukkah story. The same thing can happen to us. Change happens, uproots our expectations, upends our lives. And when in response a small group of individuals comes together, supports each other, in so doing they create something holy.

All of a sudden. May it happen to us.

Hazak v’nit’hazek, be strong and let us strengthen each other

Shabbat VaYeshev: Return, O Light, and We will Return to You

This is as dark as it’s going to get. From here on out, the light of the sun returns to us, slowly, day by day.

Darkness settles on us human beings like an oppressive cloak. Like Jacob and his sons in our parashat hashavua, we might even lose our grip on what’s real, and what’s really important. The darkness of their jealousy causes his brothers to sell Joseph into slavery and allow his father to believe that he is dead. The darkness of his grief turns Jacob away from his remaining sons. Love leads to hurt, becomes betrayal, and mires a family in misery.

The wisdom of our ancient tradition does not tell us to avoid darkness – we’ve been around too long to believe in such a possibility. Rather, we are invited to note that the eye has both a dark part and a white part, and it is out of the dark part that we see. (R. Berekhiah b’Rabi, Midrash Tanhuma to Exodus, commenting on Psalm 18.29) Light blinds the eye; it is only in darkness that we are able to see light.

Joseph, cast into the darkness of an Egyptian dungeon, embodies this insight. It is not by betrayal and hate that he is able to climb up out of that darkness. When he is offered success in Egyptian terms, he consistently applies the ethical terms he learned from his own tradition to those opportunities. His steady honesty leads toward blessings he can see in the greater light that dawns for him and, ultimately, for all Egypt, as he is able to use his position to create public policy to forestall the worst effects of a multi-year famine.

Some of us have been cast down into our own dungeons of darkness, flirting with despair and with helplessness, in these dark days. It has been harder to remember to be gentle with those we love, and kind to those with whom we share our communities. It is not only personal grief that turns one inward and can lead to more hurt than necessary. It’s not easy to find the strength that Joseph had, to banish the darkness through steady connection to one’s ethics and honesty. 

How did Joseph manage it? What allowed him to see the light in the midst of the darkness that surrounded him? According to our tradition, it was because he never forgot the place from which he came and the people who came before him. He was able to see much more than light; because he remembered who he was and where he was from, he was able to see light’s Source.

We are taught that each of us is a reflection of G*d. That does not mean that we look, physically, like G*d. What we “see,” in the reflection that is each of us, is not carried on the wavelength of visible light. It is memory that communicates the resemblance between Creator and Creation. Memory is not a personal reverie; it is a collective, pulsing river of light, carrying the story of who we are, back and forth, all life long, creating us and forming G*d. Each individual’s memory illuminates a small part of the darkness that surrounds us.    

And so Hanukkah comes to remind us, just exactly at the right time, that darkness is nothing but an invitation to believe in our ability to kindle light, and to see in that light much more than the present reality it illuminates. Our Havdalah candle tomorrow evening leads directly to the kindling of the first light of the Hanukkiyah, as if already to encourage us to see how the spark becomes a bigger flame when we remember all the Hanukkah holidays that have come before, and all those who kindled light before us.

This, we pray, is as dark as it’s going to get. From here on out, may light of our own kindling return to us, slowly, day by day.

Shabbat VaYishlakh: Gratitude, Not Fear

As Parashat VaYishlakh begins, Jacob survives a confrontation with his brother Esau, from whom he has been estranged for twenty years – a generation, a lifetime, of distance. Jacob has prepared himself for the worst, splitting his family into two camps and sending lavish gifts to his brother in advance – according to the Midrash, he even hides his daughter Dinah in the luggage lest Esau, his disgusting thug of a brother, see her and want to marry her. 

Yet Jacob finds his brother forgiving and welcoming. Upon meeting him, Esau folds him in a loving embrace. What does Jacob make of this surprise? Generations of commentaries have related to this encounter in ways that reveal more about the commentator than the story.

One asserts – with a complete absence of evidence – that Esau’s embrace was meant to kill his brother, and only G*d’s protection of Jacob saved his life. Another insists that Jacob was punished for hiding Dinah, and in so doing manifesting his contempt for the brother who was so different from him, rather than believing that a match between Dinah and Esau could possibly have redeemed Esau, bringing him back into the main narrative of the family.

Unable to believe in the peace that Esau is apparently offering, Jacob makes excuses, falsely assuring his brother they will meet again soon, and then heading as far away as he can get. Jacob settles his miraculously intact family in Sh’khem, where the townspeople seem friendly enough. 

Jacob’s punishment then arrives. As often happens in families, the effect of his behavior falls not upon him but on Dinah. What happens is unclear in the text; Dinah goes out to see the town, and either falls in love and elopes or was kidnapped and raped. The Torah does not record her own feelings about the situation, only those of the men between whom she is caught. 

Jacob’s sons falsely assure the men of Sh’khem that it’s all right, and they then fall murderously upon the unsuspecting some in their beds. Many die in the ensuring conflict, and Jacob and his family flee, wanderers again, this time in their own home country. Jacob’s experience has gone from mistrust of a brother to misunderstanding with an entire community.

Was all of this inevitable, as the plight of homeless wanderers often seems unrelievedly tragic? Or was it possible that Esau and Jacob – twin brothers after all – really could have been reconciled? And that perhaps the tragedy of Sh’khem never needed to happen at all….

In a time of fear it is easy to assume that violence and hatred are around every corner. If only Jacob could have kept in mind the prayer of gratitude with which he traveled to meet his brother: קטנתי מכל החסדים ומכל האמת שעשית את עבדך – “I am too small (i.e. unworthy) for all the true kindness You have done for Your servant”. (Bereshit 32.11) If he had managed to maintain a sense of gratitude for all the miracles he had already known, could he have approached Esau with hope in his heart, rather than (just) fear?

Yes, for Jacob the world may have been ending, but he had known so much good until that moment. What shall we feel, those of us who have known so much good in our lives, and still do – gratitude for all the years? or shall we allow it all to be erased in moments of darkness and fear? What evil do we bring upon ourselves and our loved ones because we expect it? What good is murdered in its bed before it can be born?

We may be unworthy, but we have known so much good. On this Shabbat, may your gratitude overcome your suffering.

(Here is an amazing recording of Jacob’s prayer of gratitude by Israeli composer and musician Yonatan Razel: Katonti)

Shabbat VaYetze: Backyard Mitzvot Will Change the World

This is the parashah of the “baby wars”. Leah and Rakhel, sisters and also wives of Yakov, strive against each other to bear more children. In the triennial system in which we are reading Year Two, Rakhel’s dramatic declaration and Yakov’s reply reveal the intensity:

וַתֵּרֶא רָחֵל כִּי לֹא יָלְדָה לְיַעֲקֹב וַתְּקַנֵּא רָחֵל בַּאֲחֹתָהּ וַתֹּאמֶר אֶל-יַעֲקֹב הָבָה-לִּי בָנִים וְאִם-אַיִן מֵתָה אָנֹכִי.

And when Rakhel saw that she bore Yakov no children, Rakhel envied her sister; and she said unto Yakov: ‘Give me children, or else I die.’

וַיִּחַר-אַף יַעֲקֹב בְּרָחֵל וַיֹּאמֶר הֲתַחַת אֱלֹהִים אָנֹכִי אֲשֶׁר-מָנַע מִמֵּךְ פְּרִי-בָטֶן.

Yakov’s anger was kindled against Rakhel; and he said: ‘Am I in God’s stead, who has blocked you from fruit of the womb?’ (Bereshit 30.1-2)

Rakhel brings her servant companion into the battle on her side, so that any children she bears will be counted as Rakhel’s; Leah then does the same. The four women live in a system in which they are judged by their ability to bring children into the world – most specifically male children.

They are caught in this contest, in which they are judged by their ability to have a child. Rather than make common cause against it, asserting many other ways in which a human being who happens to be a woman is precious, necessary and valuable, they let the system define them. They turn against each other rather than work together to change what they can, and refuse to give in where they cannot effect change.

Their challenge is also ours. Human nature has not changed all that much in the several thousand years since this story was first told. It is striking and significant that our ancestors, telling a patriarchal story, devoted so many of the sacred words of the Torah to the struggles of Leah and Rakhel to live meaningful lives. As in much of the Torah, we are not told the right answer to the story; we are given this human story, with all its familiar human emotional difficulties, so that we can work out the right answer.

Their challenge is also ours and it belongs to those who function as men in our society as well as to those who are women, in terms of our roles and how they are valued. Can we in our day do better than these two, who were siblings before they were Yakov’s wives? Can we, of whatever and all genders, look beyond the way in which we are currently valued as a result of our gender (and of course other factors)? Can we see the ways in which the way we value ourselves leads us to compete with each other to our own detriment?

The women of the Torah are not powerless. The story of Tamar, or of Rivkah, or Naomi and Ruth, clearly indicate that. The difficulty is in reaching beyond the strong walls of assumptions, of learned mistrust, of personal vulnerability underneath it all.

In these days of fear for our own safety, may we learn from this story not to let our society assign our value – and not to trust it to assign any one else’s. You and I must accept the results of this election, but we must never ever accept injustice, inequality, or indecency. 

Can you see the larger forces that push us away from each other? Can you see our power if we refuse to be pushed?

As we seek to find our path through this present wilderness, don’t worry about challenging these great forces head on. Ancient Jewish wisdom bids us begin in our own backyards, for this is the only way that the great forces of society will ever change.

Here is a list of ten Backyard Mitzvot for you to consider for this week:

1. Write or call your representative in Congress and express your opposition to any attempt to roll back equal rights for LGBTQ people, to create a registry for Muslim Americans, to cutting 22 million Americans off health insurance, to reduce access to contraception and cancer screenings, and to nominations of people who are unqualified or bigoted.

2. Make Shabbat intential downtime for you. Set your kavanah (intention) to commemorate this upcoming fourth anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. After Shabbat, look up Moms Demand Action to see what you can do to help.

3. If you’re in Portland Oregon, come on Sunday December 11 to the Japanese American HIstorical Plaza at 4pm for Vision & Vigilance Candlelight Vigil: Protesting Muslim Registry.

4. Put your money where your mouth is. Contribute regularly to groups that promote equal rights, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU, and our Portland chapter of SURJ (Show Up for Racial Justice).

5. Don’t let it slide when a friend makes degrading comments about anyone. Kindly but firmly ask them not to make those kinds of remarks around you.

6. Consider joining the Women’s March on Washington the day after the inauguration. 

7. Volunteer as an escort for patients at our local Planned Parenthood who must endure the verbal assaults of protesters in order to receive medical services.

8. Donate canned goods or send a check or bring clothes – to the Arc, to the Oregon Food Bank, to the North East Emergency Food Pantry.

9. Give books to the Books Through Bars program, which provides reading materials to incarcerated people.

10. Mark your calendar now to join us in marching in the Gay Pride parade next June.

Yours is not to complete the work, yet neither are you exempt from doing your part. – Pirke Avot

Calling upon the President-Elect to Pursue Justice: Oregon Board of Rabbis Statement

Pray for the peace of the place in which you live; build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their fruit. – Jeremiah 29.7

Since the election, there has been an increase of hate crimes around our great nation. The Oregon Board of Rabbis is disturbed by this trend. A key part of our ongoing mission is dedicated to teaching compassion and tolerance within our community. We call upon the President-elect to demonstrate similar caring leadership by denouncing in the strongest possible terms extremist voices that sow hate and disarray.

As Americans it is our privilege, and as Jews our responsibility, to speak out against the elevation of bigotry and extremism in our national life, and to guard against complicity in ourselves and others. 

As Jews we are respectful of the government and of the power of authorities to do justice, and we also have a particular obligation that reaches far beyond the halls of civic power. We are commanded: justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live. (Deuteronomy 16.20)

As Americans we call upon the leaders of our government to pursue justice for all the inhabitants of our land. As Jews we call upon each other to work for the peace of the land in which we live, and to stand firm in common cause with all those who are vulnerable.

We pray for the peace of this land, and we each commit to tending the gardens where we live.

Hazak hazak v’nit’hazek, let us be strong and let us strengthen each other

Shabbat Toldot: The Unraveling

This Shabbat we read parashat Toldot. Two boys are born to Rebekah and Isaac. Esau and Jacob are twins, born together – Jacob’s name reflects the fact that he is born holding on to his brother’s heel. Surely they will grow up to be close.

But they grow up very differently. Esau loves the outdoors, and learns to track and hunt. He is most alive when immersed in the natural surroundings of their lives. Jacob, the Torah tells us, is a quiet young man who “dwells in tents”, someone who cooks with his mother. Surely, though, their differences need cause no distance between them.

The Torah’s narration of their early lives emphasizes their differences, though, and it seems inevitable that the conflict will occur, as it does. The blessing of the first born can only be given to one of them, and when Jacob manages to steal it from his brother, older by about two seconds, Esau swears to kill him. And so this family is rent asunder, for Jacob must leave home, and Esau is left bereft not only of blessing but of his companion, his twin.

How does this unraveling occur? How might they have stopped it from happening? And what can we learn from this story, so as not to repeat it?

We in this United States of America have long been taught that we are all brothers and sisters, twins so to speak in the opportunities that lie before us, the glowing horizon that beckons us. Why is it that we end up at odds with those who should be our companions? How is it that we end up stealing blessings from each other? Is there not another way, a way in which we might demand that there is enough blessing for all?

In these days as winter closes in and we withdraw to warm dwellings (and may we not forget to look after those who have no place to get warm!), there is much to keep us contemplative and thoughtful. Soon enough we will be called to act – many of us are already active in one way or another. Now is a good time to not only gather together, as we will soon for Hanukkah, but also to settle into learning what we can.

I recommend this book, The Unwinding, that I am settling down to read. I would be interested in your thoughts about it as we continue to meet, and talk, and pray over the questions of what we are called upon to do, and how we might be reconnected to our twins who grew up in this country of promise with us, and yet are so far away from us that some have even spoken of killing – have even killed – those whom they see as in some way stealing from them.

On this Shabbat, may we find learning, and quiet consideration – no conclusions necessarily ripe to be drawn, but perhaps, just maybe, a memory of once long ago, a touch of a hand upon our heel, a grasp of one with whom we were born and with whom we will find our destiny.

Shabbat Hayei Sarah: Kindness Trumps Rights

Throughout many generations of wandering in Exile, our ancestors would begin to develop our community institutions whenever we came to a new place, and it seemed like we would be able to stay for a while. The first such institution was neither the beit midrash (learning center) nor a beit knesset (center for gathering and prayer) – it was, rather, a beit avot v’imahot (a place for our parents/ancestors) – a cemetery.

In this week’s parashat hashavua (weekly parsha) Abraham yet again models for us for the first time this ancient Jewish cultural norm. Sarah dies at the age of 127 years and Abraham, after the shock of the loss, realizes that he has done no preplanning. Sarah must be appropriately and respectfully buried, but he has no beit avot v’imahot – no place where he and his descendants might bury those who go before them into death.

Such is the life of an immigrant. All of his family of origin, and hers, were buried back in Ur in Haldea, the city in which they were born and raised. Abraham must now approach the people of the land – our text calls them “the Hittites”, not necessarily naming their ethnicity – and he speaks the ancient words which still speak of the immigrant’s condition, of loneliness and vulnerability:

I am a stranger living among you (Bereshit 23.4)

Abraham goes about the business of purchasing a cave in which he buries Sarah, and in which he will, in his turn, be buried. That cave, called Makhpelah, is today often invoked as the first “proof” that today’s Jews, descendants as we are of Abraham and Sarah, belong in the Land of Israel – we have holdings there, some say, that go all the way back. For that reason, some Jews insist on residing in the ancient city of Hebron which is next door – to assert that ancient “right”.

I put “quotes” around the words “proof” and “right” because both words are problematic. In our Torah tradition, much of what is written is not necessarily proof; and in Jewish law, there is no category of “rights” – rather, to be a Jew is to consider what our obligation is in any given situation that may confront us.

Consider the situation of Abraham the Ivri, that stranger who immigrated from another place. What “proof” might it offer for us?

In our own day, in these uncertain times, let it prove a reminder: that Abraham offered generous hospitality when the moment called for it, and when he needed it in return, the Hittites among whom he lived offered it to the stranger who lived among them. He was allowed to buy the land with the cave in it, and he was allowed to bury his dead in peace. He was safe with those people among whom he appeared as an immigrant – no documents, no papers, no “proof” of any “right” to what he needed. 

Abraham is for us a role model – not only for our own behavior, but also for considering our treatment of the immigrant who appears among us. The Torah tells us that HaShem commanded Abraham to “walk with G*d”, and our ancestors tell us what that means:

Rabbi Hama beRabi Hanina said, what does it mean to walk after the attributes of the Holy blessed One? It means to clothe the naked, for it is written:  HaShem made for Adam and for Eve coats of skin, and clothed them, so should you also clothe the naked. The Holy blessed One visited the sick, for it is written: HaShem appeared unto Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, so should you also visit the sick. The Holy blessed One comforted mourners, for it is written: It came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed Isaac his son, so should you also comfort mourners. The Holy blessed One buried the dead, for it is written: G*d buried Moshe in the valley, so shall you also bury the dead. 

We can learn from Abraham the further instance of parashat VaYera – as G*d sustains the living, so shall we, by offering hospitality (shelter, food and rest), and from the Hittites’ treatment of Abraham in this parashah – as Abraham sought to live in peace with his neighbors, and as the Hittites dealt kindly with the immigrant in their midst, so shall we, by acting to fulfill the mitzvah – v’ahavta l’reyakha kamokha, “treat others with the loyalty to our common humanity as you desire it for yourself.”

The passage finishes this way:

Rabbi Simlai concluded: Torah begins with an act of gemilut hasadim (altruistic loving kindness) and ends with an act of gemilut hasadim. It begins with it, for it is written: HaShem made for Adam and for Eve coats of skin, and clothed them; and it ends with it, for it is written: G*d buried him in the valley. (BT Sotah 14a)

Rashi said of Sarah that she was as ethically pure at twenty years as at seven, and as beautiful at one hundred years as she was at twenty. May it be said of us that even when we became older and more skeptical, more tired and more given to cynicism, we continued to see the stranger in our midst and hear in our hearts the command to walk with G*d, that we – whether we find ourselves to be the vulnerable stranger or the safely settled, might always respond in g’milut hasadim.

Mitzvot come at you from every direction these days. Here is one in which I hope you will join me should the occasion truly arise:

http://forward.com/scribe/354487/all-jews-should-register-as-muslims-because-we-know-the-horrors-of-religiou/ 

Hazak v’nit’hazek, be strong and let us strengthen each other