Shabbat Nakhamu: Finding Consolation In Terrible Times

נחמו נחמו עמי…נחמוה עליונים נחמוה תחתונים. נחמוה חיים ונחמוה מתים. נחמוה בעווה“ז ונחמוה לעוה“ב. נחמוה על עשרת השבטים, נחמוה על שבט יהודה ובנימין, לפי שכתוב שתי בכיות: ”“בכה תבכה בלילה“ (איכה א,ב) לכך נאמר ”נחמו נחמו עמי“ (ילקוט שמעני, ישעיה). עיטורי תרוה שבת נחמו

Nahamu nahamu ami, be consoled, be consoled: in realms above and below, to the living and the dead, in this world and in the World To Come. Consolation to the ten tribes and to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, as it is written twice weeping “weep O weep in the night” (Eikha, Lamentations, 1.2) thus it is said “be consoled, be consoled O my people” (Yalkut Shimoni, Isaiah) – Itturei Torah, Shabbat Nahamu

Poppies bloom in the Palestinian village El Aizariyah – photo by the author

This parashat hashavua, the Torah reading for this week, is aimed at us by the ancient Sages of our tradition to hit directly after Tisha B’Av, the most catastrophic day in our Jewish calendar. Thus the special name of this Shabbat, taken from the Haftarah’s opening words: be consoled, be consoled, my people.” (Isaiah 40.1). We are encouraged, on this Shabbat of all Shabbatot, to recognize that after the most complete destruction, there is still some spark, somewhere, of hope, that we can find if we seek it out.

All the more curious that our parashah is called VaEt’khanan, “I begged.” In the first verse of the parashah, Deuteronomy 3.23, Moshe pleads with HaShem. Not unlike our ancestors in the days preceding and even after the destruction of the Temple, this great leader who is also simply a human being is begging for his life. HaShem has already told him that he will not live to see the land promised to our ancestors; Moshe is not reconciled to this fate, and as our tale begins, he is literally pleading for mercy.

Alas, HaShem will turn away from his plea in the following verses. Thus it was foreordained and thus it had to be. Turning away from someone’s agony is a normal reaction when there is nothing we can do to change the situation. But then why is this Shabbat called Nakhamu, Consolation? What consolation is possible here?  

With this painful question in mind, we might ask: what would have happened if HaShem could have listened to Moshe’s pain? Even knowing that there was nothing that could be done? Our ancestors taught that it is no wisdom to speak words of consolation to someone who cannot hear them: we are not to say “there, there, it will be all right” to someone who has just lost a loved one. Yet we find ourselves somewhere between et’khanan, pleading for mercy, and nahamu, finding consolation. 

We are a people who is commanded to listen: shema, Israel. The path we seek may hang upon this mitzvah. Come and hear: this summer, the peace building group Combatants for Peace is holding a summer camp for teenaged Palestinians and Israelis in a third, undisclosed location for their safety. In a conversation held by Zoom webinar, participants shared that it was strikingly meaningful to be heard. When another who is suffering, especially when they are suffering at the hands of your people, it is revolutionary to know that she can put aside her pain to hear about the other’s. With careful support and guidance, through role playing, therapy art and dance, and more, young Palestinians and young Israelis at this most cursed of moments are making friends with each other not despite their pain, but through it.

Many of our commentators struggle with HaShem’s behavior in forbidding Moshe to enter the land of the promise because of what we can only see as a single indiscretion. We want to argue on a logical basis that Moshe’s merits far outweighed his demerits. But in so doing both they, and we if we follow this reasoning, are missing the most important point.

There is no reason, at the end of the day, why so many innocent people are suffering. There is no escape for far too many from horrifying deaths and overwhelming trauma. So many incredibly dedicated activists are working desperately – in Israel and in the U.S. and around the Western world – to try to help, and the glaring reality that dawns upon us is that there is very little we can do to change even one innocent person’s fate while this horror continues.

Never mind what we cannot do; here is what we can do. We can learn from those teenage participants in their momentary reprieve from all-encompassing despair. Unlike HaShem, who here is not the Source of Mercy but of unrelieved Judgement, we can obey the command to listen. Not to turn away because it is difficult, but to stay open. Not to turn away because my pain is great and they cannot hear me, but to stay engaged and learn how to put my own pain aside, for a moment, so that I can hear another’s.

Too often we adulterate our mercy with judgement; in this way we reflect HaShem also. We keep track: why should I care about you if you do not care about me (first)? This too often seems to be the politics of the Jewish community in the U.S. in our day. But if there will be any shred of consolation for ourselves in our time, it will not come from everything turning out “fine” or “happily every after” but only from something that, in the end, is the first and most elemental command of our existence: shema, listen. Don’t judge; don’t decide; don’t worry in advance about what you will hear, or about your helplessness to respond. 

Listen.

May consolation come to all above and below, all those languishing in tunnels and under destroyed buildings, and all those suffering in too-quiet places for word that still has not come. And may consolation come to us, who cannot forgive ourselves for not being in the place of HaShem to save everyone from the sorrow of these days.

Tisha B’Av 5785: Our Joy is turned to Sorrow

קרא עלי מעוד (איכה א.טו) בגמרא: ויבכו העם בלילה ההוא – ואותו לילה ליל תשעה בעב היה ואמר הקב״ה״ אתם בכיתם בכיה שלחינם ואני אקבע לכן בו בכיה לדורות (סנחדרין ד). 

declared upon me this appointed time (Eikha 1.15). In the Gemara: “the people wept that night” – that same night was the night of the 9th of Av, and the Holy One said “you have wept for no reason, I will give you a reason to weep for generations” (BT Sanhedrin 4).

Rashi explains that because HaShem is called m’kadesh haShabbat we understand that the Shabbat time is fixed by HaShem, and the phrase m’kadesh Yisrael v’haz’manim indicates that it is the kedushah of Israel which sanctifies the z’manim, by means of the determination of the date according to the judgement of the (human, not Divine) beit din. (R. Yosef Sha’ul Nathanson, Itturei Torah, Eikha, 268)

The above commentary concludes by noting that in this case, the mo’ed is fixed by the Holy One, not by Israel. This mistakes the nature of Israel’s sin for a simple heyt, pesha or avon to be decried and mourned for generations, when the deeper significance is more profound. In truth, when given the opportunity of 1948, not only have we not acted to turn Tisha B’Av into a Festival, but we have done the opposite, and made Simkhat Torah a time of mourning for all time to come.

For many generations of suffering in Exile, we consoled ourselves that in the end, our mourning will turn to joy; that in future, the 17th of Tammuz will be the first day of a festival, and the 9th of Av the last day, and the Three Weeks will be the hol hamo’ed of the hag. Instead, behold the mighty deeds of the people of Israel, whose sin has turned our Simkhat Torah into Tisha B’Av. We have turned  our simkha into avel. We have fixed this mo’ed upon ourselves and our descendants forever; as long as the memory of the people of Israel lives, Simkhat Torah will never again be a time of rejoicing.

We who stood at the gates of the Promised Land, we who beheld before our very eyes the first flowering of our redemption, we only had to make ourselves into conduits for blessing, to bring down the shefa to nurture that flowering, that it might grow and strengthen into the Olam haBa of our dreams and longings. To fulfill the dream we had only to learn from our past, to refrain from idolatry and sin’at hinam. To meet the moment we had to be willing to deal with our historical trauma, to seek healing through the path of the mitzvot and the guiding spirit of v’ahavta l’reakha kamokha, treating others the way we ourselves wish to be treated.

Alas! The jeering of the children of Israel against our cousins, the children of Palestine, has become true of us: we have missed the opportunity. Because of our sins, the state of Israel has become Molokh, and we have sacrificed not only the children of Palestine to its horrible maw, but our own children as well. We have given not only ourselves but HaShem a reason to weep for generations. 

על זה היה דוה לבנו על אלה חשכו עינינו (איכה ה.יז)

For this our hearts grieve; for this our eyes are darkened. (Eikha 5.17)

See: how many have died, innocent of any crime?

See: how many more will die? how many who live will be dead at heart?

See: our joy is turned to sorrow. Again, we are fated to wander, exiled mipney hatoteynu, as we admit in our prayers, because of our sins.

Eikha ends with harsh words; it is traditional practice to repeat the next to last line as a nehemta, a consolation, so that we do not end the recitation with sadness but with hope. It is difficult on this Tisha b’Av to believe that it is more appropriate to end with hope than with despair. But perhaps the abiding teaching here is that we Jews must find within ourselves our generational stubbornness here as well: to continue to believe that we can do better. Today we mourn all that we have lost; beginning tomorrow, we return to the work of that hope.

Shabbat Hazon: Seeing

The human capacity for avoiding uncomfortable truths is so very well-developed. Consider the time-tested, familiar, absolutely transparently false ways we get around what we don’t want to face: it’s someone else’s fault. I was busy and must have missed it. That can’t possibly be true. I was unavoidably detained. Circumstances conspired against me. You don’t understand; it’s more complicated than that. I can’t, I physically/mentally/emotionally can’t be blamed. I didn’t see it; I don’t want to see it, I never saw it. This Shabbat is about seeing, including what we don’t want to see; it is called Shabbat Hazon, “vision”, from the Haftarah.

Jewish tradition at its best is possessed of a fearless honesty, and these Three Weeks are the most difficult time of all to engage with its wisdom if one is not ready to face one’s own truth. We can seek to blame what’s wrong with ourselves and with our world on our own current society or on historical trends; but our sages know that it’s part of our very make up. The first humans in the Garden were already using the techniques of avoiding truth and blame:

וַיֹּ֖אמֶר הָֽאָדָ֑ם הָֽאִשָּׁה֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר נָתַ֣תָּה עִמָּדִ֔י הִ֛וא נָֽתְנָה־לִּ֥י מִן־הָעֵ֖ץ וָאֹכֵֽל׃ וַיֹּ֨אמֶר ה’ אֱלֹקים לָאִשָּׁ֖ה מַה־זֹּ֣את עָשִׂ֑ית וַתֹּ֙אמֶר֙ הָֽאִשָּׁ֔ה הַנָּחָ֥שׁ הִשִּׁיאַ֖נִי וָאֹכֵֽל׃ 

The human said, “The woman You put at my side—she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” G!d ‘ה said to the woman, “What is this you have done!” The woman replied, “The serpent duped me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3.12-13)

Rather than face what we feel is unbearable about ourselves, we go shopping; we lose ourselves in exercise or other practices; we distract ourselves with anything that we can manage to grasp and put between ourselves and the pain of facing what’s wrong. 

The culmination of these Three Weeks of dread and apprehension, Tisha B’Av, will be upon us on Saturday evening, at the close of Shabbat. For three weeks the assigned readings from our sacred texts have become more and more difficult to encounter. This week’s haftarah says it outright, and we feel its truth.

שָׂרַ֣יִךְ סוֹרְרִ֗ים וְחַבְרֵי֙ גַּנָּבִ֔ים כֻּלּוֹ֙ אֹהֵ֣ב שֹׁ֔חַד וְרֹדֵ֖ף שַׁלְמֹנִ֑ים יָתוֹם֙ לֹ֣א יִשְׁפֹּ֔טוּ וְרִ֥יב אַלְמָנָ֖ה לֹא־יָב֥וֹא אֲלֵיהֶֽם׃         

Your rulers are rogues and cronies of thieves,

Every one avid for presents and greedy for gifts;

They do not judge the case of the orphan, and the widow’s cause never reaches them. 

(Isaiah 1.23)

It is said that if Yom Kippur is the day of reckoning for the individual Jew, Tisha B’Av is that same day of truth for the Jewish people. In our difficult days, to confront our communal truth is to reflect upon disappointments so great that they are hard to face: we Jews are like any other people. We, too, can be cruel. We, too, can do evil. We, too, can cause the same kind of misery that has been wreaked upon us. The faces of Gaza look exactly like our faces not so long ago in Auschwitz.

In his book Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, Peter Beinart offers us a chance to face all the uncomfortable truths. He does so as a committed Jew and a Zionist. His willingness to speak regarding what we would rather not see has made him a hero to some and a pariah to others in the Jewish world. But no prophet is appreciated in their own time.

He writes that not that long ago, the Third Wave of Democracy (the Arab Spring, the fall of the USSR and the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the velvet revolutions of Czechoslovakia and Ukraine, and more) seemed to herald a new world of hope. It is terribly disheartening to realize that all around us, that hope has been savagely destroyed. From Putin to Trump to Netanyahu, cruelty and greed are ascendant, and the Jewish people is not separate from it, not a light to the nations, not shining forth a prophetic light; “in its unchecked cruelty and unbearable pain, the destruction of Gaza is a symbol of our age.”

Yet Yom Kippur is meant to end with the real transformation atonement effects, and so an honest Tisha B’Av reckoning must also harbor the hope of healing. This is exactly what our haftarah for this Shabbat urges us, in all simplicity:

לִמְד֥וּ הֵיטֵ֛ב דִּרְשׁ֥וּ מִשְׁפָּ֖ט אַשְּׁר֣וּ חָמ֑וֹץ שִׁפְט֣וּ יָת֔וֹם רִ֖יבוּ אַלְמָנָֽה׃

Learn to do good.

Devote yourselves to justice; aid the wronged. 

Uphold the rights of the orphan; defend the cause of the widow. 

(Isaiah 1.17)

Our tradition does not support cancel culture, except that we do believe in the power of good to cancel evil. We believe that we can not only break things, but that we can also repair them, and ourselves, and do better. Evil does exist in us; it is part of human nature. Good does, as well – but only if we are willing to look.

Shabbat Matot-Masei: Go and Learn

These are the journeys of the people of Israel (Num. 33.1) These journeys are a hint to us of redemption, and they offer a means toward atonement. One who must move from one place to another must continue to find a way to study Torah in that new place. Your slogan for this: tze ulmad, “go and learn.”   (After the Shela”h)

We human beings can get pretty dependent upon habit in our lives. In a room where people return week after week like a shul, there are those who end up in the same seat, regularly. It can even happen that a new person might find themselves asked to move, since “you sat in my regular seat.” 

There’s a certain comfort in regularity. The sun appears every morning in the sky. We get used to seeing the same surroundings where we live. We draw comfort from a certain predictability in our days. It is understandable that when change surprises us, we may not be entirely happy about it.

If knowing what’s around the bend is the only consolation of movement through life, these days are terribly discomfiting. We may joke about the inevitability of change, but it doesn’t mean that we’re reconciled to it. Something in us wants to stay put, as the profound symbolism of the vine and the fig tree reveal; since it takes years for these two to grow, if one is able to sit under them, it is a sign that one has not had to move for some time. That, for our ancestors, was the definition of peace.

Yet we inherit two thousand years of wandering through one land after another, during our ancestors had many opportunities to consider the meaning of journeying, both according to plan or against one’s will. As a product of the high value Ashkenazi culture placed on education, the Shela”h, Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (author of Shnei Luhot haBrit) saw clearly that even as our ancestors managed to study Torah in new places and new situations, so must we.

It’s a natural Jewish stubbornness that refuses to go along with change in this one, essential way. Rather than invest our love in wood and stone buildings, we’ve learned that the only thing that we will not lose with change is what we can carry. Torah, in our hearts and minds, and in a scroll that is eminently portable (and these days in a computer or smartphone!). What we’ve learned we can cling to is the regular study of Torah, which will not change, although its surroundings and context inevitably must.

The clickbait sources around us tell us that the world will end tomorrow; the more complicated and difficult truth is that the world will continue, and that some of us will continue to do just fine in these distressing days. There is some consolation to be gained in learning that, while great things fall apart, we can still depend upon Torah study. 

Some will insist that the rule of law is ended, and nothing matters any more. This is just false prophecy; we’ve seen that before. Some will declare that we live in unprecedented times; Jews have been around long enough to know that “there is nothing new under the sun” as Kohelet wrote. 

Your life is changing? Tze ulmad, go forth and learn from it, learn in it, learn through it. Let Torah remind you that the truth, or what shades of it we’re able to discern, is bigger and more complicated than any habit or any predictability. As our ancestors have already pointed out, we are a people that wanders, and we have discovered, time and again, that certainty is not tied to a specific place or way or habit, but of keeping one’s orientation away from Egypt, and toward HaShem. Holding on to Torah is all that can help us maintain certainty. It will always be true that murder is wrong, and that what is done will echo back upon us:

וְלֹֽא־תַחֲנִ֣יפוּ אֶת־הָאָ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֤ר אַתֶּם֙ בָּ֔הּ כִּ֣י הַדָּ֔ם ה֥וּא יַחֲנִ֖יף אֶת־הָאָ֑רֶץ וְלָאָ֣רֶץ לֹֽא־יְכֻפַּ֗ר לַדָּם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר שֻׁפַּךְ־בָּ֔הּ כִּי־אִ֖ם בְּדַ֥ם שֹׁפְכֽוֹ׃ 

You shall not pollute the land in which you live; for blood pollutes the land, and the land can have no expiation for blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. (Num. 35.33)

During these Three Weeks of Trepidation before the awful day of Tisha B’Av, there is no way to find consolation. We are part of systems that do violence and cause misery and death beyond our ability to comprehend. We are, mostly and most of the time, helpless to stop the evil. All we can do, and what we must habitually, regularly do, is to hold on to our humanity, to remember that all human beings are created in the Image of the Divine. Everyone deserves to sit under a vine and fig tree, with none to make them afraid.

Shabbat Pinkhas: Could Be Worse

Could be worse; could be raining.

Young Frankenstein

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר ה’ אֵלַ֗י מָֽה־אַתָּ֤ה רֹאֶה֙ עָמ֔וֹס וָאֹמַ֖ר אֲנָ֑ךְ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר א’ הִנְנִ֨י שָׂ֤ם אֲנָךְ֙ בְּקֶ֙רֶב֙ עַמִּ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹא־אוֹסִ֥יף ע֖וֹד עֲב֥וֹר לֽוֹ׃ 

HaShem said unto me: ‘Amos, what seest thou?’ And I said: ‘A plumbline.’ Then said Hashem: Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of My people Israel; I will not again pardon them any more. – Amos 7.8

Twenty-three and a half years ago, a major Israeli newspaper ran a prophetic text as a full-page presentation on the first page of its weekend edition.

שִׁמְעוּ־נָ֣א זֹ֗את רָאשֵׁי֙ בֵּ֣ית יַעֲקֹ֔ב וּקְצִינֵ֖י בֵּ֣ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל הַֽמְתַעֲבִ֣ים מִשְׁפָּ֔ט וְאֵ֥ת כׇּל־הַיְשָׁרָ֖ה יְעַקֵּֽשׁוּ׃ 

Hear this, you rulers of the House of Jacob, you chiefs of the House of Israel, who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight,

בֹּנֶ֥ה צִיּ֖וֹן בְּדָמִ֑ים וִירוּשָׁלַ֖͏ִם בְּעַוְלָֽה׃ 

Who build Zion with crime, Jerusalem with iniquity

רָאשֶׁ֣יהָ ׀ בְּשֹׁ֣חַד יִשְׁפֹּ֗טוּ וְכֹהֲנֶ֙יהָ֙ בִּמְחִ֣יר יוֹר֔וּ וּנְבִיאֶ֖יהָ בְּכֶ֣סֶף יִקְסֹ֑מוּ וְעַל־ה’ יִשָּׁעֵ֣נוּ לֵאמֹ֔ר הֲל֤וֹא ה’ בְּקִרְבֵּ֔נוּ לֹֽא־תָב֥וֹא עָלֵ֖ינוּ רָעָֽה׃ 

Her rulers judge for gifts, her priests give rulings for a fee, and her prophets divine for pay;

Yet they rely upon HaShem, saying, “HaShem is in our midst; no calamity shall overtake us.”

לָכֵן֙ בִּגְלַלְכֶ֔ם צִיּ֖וֹן שָׂדֶ֣ה תֵֽחָרֵ֑שׁ וִירוּשָׁלַ֙͏ִם֙ עִיִּ֣ין תִּֽהְיֶ֔ה וְהַ֥ר הַבַּ֖יִת לְבָמ֥וֹת יָֽעַר׃

Assuredly, because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field,

Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins and the Temple Mount a shrine in the woods.

Micah 3.9-12

Israel and Palestine were suffering in the Second Intifada; the daily occurrence of death and destruction throughout the land between the river and the sea was horrific (here is a list of only those attacks that caused death: Israel and Palestine conflict 2002). 

The prophet Micah probably got about as much result from the original utterance as the editorial board of that Israeli newspaper got. It is shocking to consider how much more death and destruction has occurred since that day. What could be worse than this horrifying, seemingly unending cycle of madness and death?

As we enter the period of the Three Weeks leading to Tisha B’Av, there is perhaps only one small consolation for us as a Jewish people, watching from afar and mostly helplessly as the Jewish state does terrible things in our name: we, the Jewish people, may be as capable as any other people of inflicting injustice, as well as suffering from it. But we also have in our tradition the greatest clarity about that injustice ever expressed in the Western world.

Things are bad, both in Israel and Palestine, and right here in the U.S. Probably the situation will get worse. We are a long-lived people, who have no excuse for not recognizing the historical arcs that sometimes rise and sometimes dip into a terrifying abyss of evil. There is no way to stop it; human society goes through convulsions such as this. 

But for us Jews, and those who love them, it could be worse. We could be without a plumb line, a measuring tool by which to face our reality. But we are not, and this we know: as sure as gravity is still gravity, justice is still justice, even when we can see that it does not exist in human relationships. 

As sure as the sun is still shining somewhere, Zion will not be built with crime; the U.S. will not be prosperous with cruelty. We have been around long enough to see this truth, time after time. There is a reason that we rejoice to see a news article that demonstrates that ancient humans had compassion; there is a reason that we are disappointed when an ethical leader falls into corruption. All is not relative; justice is good, and mercy is necessary. 

הִגִּ֥יד לְךָ֛ אָדָ֖ם מַה־טּ֑וֹב וּמָֽה־יְהֹוָ֞ה דּוֹרֵ֣שׁ מִמְּךָ֗ כִּ֣י אִם־עֲשׂ֤וֹת מִשְׁפָּט֙ וְאַ֣הֲבַת חֶ֔סֶד וְהַצְנֵ֥עַ לֶ֖כֶת עִם־אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃       

You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what  GOD requires of you: only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. – Micah 6.8

We are not speechless, we are not hopeless. We do not have to look away from what is happening. To look, despite the sadness, is to understand and embrace that life is hard, and complicated, and that this truth does not cancel out the truth that love is necessary, and life is good, and that we can only build a better life for us all by facing, and facing down, what is evil.

As we contemplate the difficult truths of the Three Weeks’s message, let’s be grateful for a tradition that insists that we are strong enough: strong enough to face the complex truth of human life, and strong enough to believe in love, even then. Hold on, and hold on to the knowledge that you are not alone. You belong to a people that wrests meaning from catastrophe, and refuses to give in to the chaos in which evil thrives. You are part of the stubborn, stiff-necked people who could leave behind this anonymous writing, found in a concentration camp:

I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there’s no one there.
And I believe in God,
even when God is silent. 

Shabbat Balak: Truth We Are Not Ready For

The prescribed reading from our Torah for this Shabbat Balak in the third year of the Triennial Cycle brings us to an interesting opportunity to consider the uses of power. King Balak of Moab sees the Israelite people emigrating through his people’s self-determined territory, and is concerned:

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר מוֹאָ֜ב אֶל־זִקְנֵ֣י מִדְיָ֗ן עַתָּ֞ה יְלַחֲכ֤וּ הַקָּהָל֙ אֶת־כׇּל־סְבִ֣יבֹתֵ֔ינוּ כִּלְחֹ֣ךְ הַשּׁ֔וֹר אֵ֖ת יֶ֣רֶק הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה 

Moab said to the elders of Midian, “Now this horde will lick clean all that is about us as an ox licks up the grass of the field.” (Numbers 22.4)

Fear of the stranger is multiplied by concern for available resources. For King Balak of Moab and his Midianite neighbors, these immigrants are dangerous simply because they have appeared in proximity to the settlements of the Moabites. Such fear – reasonable or not – is not the only possible response to the arrival of a large group of strangers, but it is the one we are dealing with, both in the Torah and, alas, in the U.S. in these days. The tired repetition of old fears and old hatreds is demoralizing to those of us who have learned that another, more peaceful and loving way, is possible and preferable.

In our part of the parashah, Balak has set up a traditional response to the perceived threat: he hires a consultant, the prophet Balaam. Balaam (associated with an ancient, now Jordanian, archaeological site) brings all the regular, reassuring power to the moment: 

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר בִּלְעָם֙ אֶל־בָּלָ֔ק בְּנֵה־לִ֥י בָזֶ֖ה שִׁבְעָ֣ה מִזְבְּחֹ֑ת וְהָכֵ֥ן לִי֙ בָּזֶ֔ה שִׁבְעָ֥ה פָרִ֖ים וְשִׁבְעָ֥ה אֵילִֽים׃ 

Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here and have seven bulls and seven rams ready here for me.” (Numbers 23.1) 

No doubt this approach is tried and true, and has worked before. But both Balak and Balaam are stymied by the results, which are opposite of their intended effect. The learning comes – or doesn’t – in their reaction, which is to try the same thing again, and then a third time. There is a definition of insanity which is to cling to a strategy even when it demonstrably is not working: doing the same thing and expecting a different result. 

Ironically, though, seen in a different way, the strategy did work the first time; the outcome was a true one, even though it was not the intended one. And this is the real difficulty: how do we see the truth of our situation when it is not what we are looking for? Balak’s behavior is that of the privileged one who is used to having his way, reduced to holding his hands over his ears and pretending he can’t hear the reality in front of him.

Balak is echoing inside of each of us in our own way. Each of us, sooner or later, confronts a reality that is not in line with our hopes and dreams. For Jews and those who love them, these times are overwhelming: not only is the State of Israel acting in a way that alienates and betrays all our dreams for it, but the U.S. is suddenly and decisively showing what some would insist is its true face in its descent into fascism. 

No matter where we turn, hopeful expectations are exploded, no less surely than buildings hit by Iranian missiles in Tel Aviv. Lives are destroyed by ICE in our own neighborhoods no less completely than in Gaza. This is so very different from what we thought life would look like!

King Balak of Moab used tried and true methods in his attempt to manipulate reality. He just wasn’t willing to accept the results as the truth. It was too far from everything he knew and trusted. It takes time to navigate the painful distance between our dreams and this harsh truth. 

How much time? 

The amount of time it takes is probably related to the amount of ground that has to be covered, carrying world-dissolving heartbreak, from where we were to where we are. There is an important difference, in my opinion, between the ethical response of a liberal Jew of a certain age to a human catastrophe anywhere in the world and the enervation, confusion, shock and agony of discovering what the State of Israel is capable of. Only Jews who treat each other with compassion, because we belong to the same community regardless of our feelings about Israel, will be able to maintain community and ahavat Yisrael. 

For us Jews and those who travel with us, we have this much: the possibility that we can hold hands and face the twin catastrophes together. Don’t try this alone at home.

Shabbat Shelakh: Telling Time in Jewish

לַכֹּ֖ל זְמָ֑ן וְעֵ֥ת לְכׇל־חֵ֖פֶץ תַּ֥חַת הַשָּׁמָֽיִם׃ 

A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven (Kohelet 3.1)

Before clocks and calendars, our people knew where we were in time by the sun, and by the Shabbat. On our ritual documents until today, traditionally we identify a day by its position in the week vis-a-vis Shabbat; today, then, is the sixth day of Shabbat Shelakh 5785. Thus, Shabbat is the orientation around which our week revolves.

Before the modern era, every Jew knew what Shabbat it was, regardless of their level of observance, because that was the social norm. For those accustomed to daven (the Jewish form and content of prayer) there are further supports to help us keep track of when we are. The way one chants the prayers reflects time of day, day of week, and, often, what Festival or holy day period is upcoming.

And then there’s the haftarah. Sometimes it reflects a theme from the parashah; often, it is coded to remind you what is happening in the world. This Shabbat’s haftarah is an extension of this ancient idea: this Shabbat we will hear our Juneteenth Haftarah. Very much in line with ancient tradition, this Jewish way of approaching the world in which we live and make meaning adds profound depth and possibility for us.

As the writer Kohelet knew, “there is a time for everything”: for singing and for silence, for gathering stones and for refraining from gathering stones, and for death and for life. These are difficult times. It helps to hold on to each other, to show up for bagels and study together when we can, and to remember to count the days in Jewish. 

Shabbat BeHa’alot’kha: Yes, It Can Get Worse

Sometimes the brain freezes and all one can do is say oh no. Stay with me now, for a moment:

Our parashat hashavua is an amazing snapshot of many different human emotions and actions. People complain, people gossip, people go about their lives; and all while living through the profound impact on their lives of escaping slavery, and now setting out for a new home.

As I’ve heard it is said in Buddhism, “after nirvana, the laundry”. In Jewish terms we might put it this way: yes, there was a Sinai moment, but we don’t live our lives at the peaks of mountains, but rather, most of the time, down in the valleys. That’s where the best grazing land is for the sheep, and it’s where one finds water, and navigable passes. One must focus on the day to day, and it takes up most of one’s attention. Then one begins to measure one’s life by the everyday moments, rather than the vision one once remembers having on a mountaintop.

That’s what Shabbat is for, every week; to remind us that there are mountaintops. There are moments. They remind us of many things. As we absorb the shock of today’s news from the Middle East, watching helplessly from a great distance as Israel enters into a state of war with Iran, it is, initially, difficult for the individual Jewish mind to focus upon anything.

That’s the human brain. It has three responses to a shock: flight, fight, or freeze. Especially from our distance, where flight or fight is not particularly applicable, we may join in a moment of freezing: of holding our collective breath. Oh no. And then, as Jews, our next move, once we have a shred of a grasp of our wits about us again, might be to turn to Torah, that Tree of Life, grab it with both hands and shake it, hard. What? what is there to think, to feel, to say?

At the first moment of shock, where we hardly feel we have the breath to react, there is not much to be said. Coincidentally, it is in this week’s parashah that we find Moshe in exactly that same emotional place, when his beloved big sister Miriam is stricken with a terrible leprosy. Helpless and horrified, he gasps the shortest prayer in our tradition: אל נע רפא נע לה – El na’ r’fa na’ lah, “O please G*d please heal her!”

Having begun to react, the mind is now able to begin to focus. Keep shaking that tree and see what falls out: Moshe, threatened with war on all sides as he leads our ancestors through inhabited territory in parashat Devarim. Moshe tries everything to maintain peace, because, simply and unequivocally, war is bad. In another place, in parashat Mishpatim, we learn that if you see the ass of your enemy fallen under its load you must stop and help him raise it. Not just your friend; your enemy. In thirty-six more places (some say thirty-nine) we are told to care for the stranger, and empathize with the stranger, since we know what it is to be a stranger. 

In all this rain of Torah learning falling like ripe apples all around us, we can catch a glimpse of the truth that the great Rabbi Louis Jacobs ז”ל asserted: the meta-ethic of the Torah is to treat others as you wish to be treated yourself. After the repeated shocks that every news day brings, after the frozen sense of what now, we Jews are lucky to have a framework of meaning come into focus for us.

The prophet Micah put it simply and profoundly: עֲשׂ֤וֹת מִשְׁפָּט֙ וְאַ֣הֲבַת חֶ֔סֶד וְהַצְנֵ֥עַ לֶ֖כֶת עִם־אֱלֹ-ךָ – do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your G*d. (Micah 6.8)

You are not on this planet to represent all Jews, nor the Jewish state. You are not alive in order to torture yourself with all you are not able to influence. You are only here to walk in humility, aware of both your capacities and your limitations. Keep on doing the justice that comes to your hands to do; feed the fire on the altar of your heart to be strong in mercy for all human beings (including yourself). That is our daily flight. And let Shabbat be our weekly flight, in a healthy, necessary way: no news (it will be there when you return), just human interaction.

May we join with all people of all places who seek peace and pursue it, in Israel, in Palestine, in the U.S., and in this entire gift of our world. 

Shabbat Naso: How To Count

We are two parshas into the book BaMidbar, “in the wilderness,” called in English “Numbers” for the simple (and reasonable) reason that the first part of the book is focused upon counting. How many Israelites of fighting age who can help defend the camp in the wilderness? How many of the various families of the tribe of Levi who are tasked with the most important thing in camp, the sacred mishkan where we seek to experience the presence of the holy? and how many souls must be accounted for at the end of a move from one oasis to another, one well to another, one safe resting place to the next?

The idiom for “count people” in ancient Israelite Hebrew is naso et rosh, a lovely image that expresses so much: to count someone you must lift up their head, which leads to the visual of looking them in the eyes. An army may march on its stomach and a classroom needs one text per brain, but our ancestors are counting souls.

It’s a spiritual journey, acted out in actual footsteps, conversations, and caring for the sheep. It consists of births, deaths, joinings and quittings, distancings and returnings, getting lost and finding a way of teshuvah, return. And it should seem familiar (except maybe for the sheep part), because our spiritual community, like any Jewish kehillah, follows in its steps in more than one way. We are not sure where we are headed, or how long it will take to get there; we do have a vision, but we’ve had to accept that the details are not predictable. For those of us who are able to delight in or at least tolerate the uncertainty of real life lived with other people, it’s a haven, a support, and a challenge, all the time.

We can take two teachings with us from this parashat hashavua which are eminently portable, as Jewish lives, we have learned, must be:

  1. we are counted in terms of where we belong

נָשֹׂ֗א אֶת־רֹ֛אשׁ בְּנֵ֥י גֵרְשׁ֖וֹן גַּם־הֵ֑ם לְבֵ֥ית אֲבֹתָ֖ם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָֽם

Take a census of the Gershonites also, by their ancestral house and by their clans. (Numbers 4.22)

Each of us belongs to an ancestry, to a bayit, “house”, and to a family. We who have been so indoctrinated in the concept of individualism may tend to the immature belief that we are in some way cut off, for better or for worse, from those around us, or from whence we come. But that is as illusory as the idea that we are uninfluenced in what we believe are our most personal moral convictions. As the Torah states here, you are counted in context, and by where you belong.

This is not, by the way, to say that you are trapped in any kind of socially mandated definitions of what these words mean: a bayit is a term that may originally simply refer to everyone who gets to eat when the family sits down for dinner in the tent. In modern Hebrew, anyone who can come and go in one’s dwelling is ben bayit, “a member of the family.”

2. we are blessed within our people

וְשָׂמ֥וּ אֶת־שְׁמִ֖י עַל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַאֲנִ֖י אֲבָרְכֵֽם         

Thus they shall link My name with the people of Israel, and I will bless them. (Numbers 7.27)

There are, however, those of your ancestors, your relatives, and your people who you don’t feel close to – and of course, there are many you don’t know. You may even disagree deeply with one or another of their beliefs about how to be Jewish, how to fulfill a mitzvah, or even how to interact with Jews with whom you don’t agree. It’s worth considering that the Torah does not see us as angelic, nor even well-behaved, most of the time; refreshingly, it’s not a hagiography. Our ancestors aren’t saints. Neither, then, are we.

Yet blessing – whether you want to call it luck, happiness, good fortune, or a sense of peace and safety – does not come to you or me as individuals, having cut off our relationships with those we don’t like or don’t agree with. We are blessed as b’nei Yisrael, the people of Israel: those we love, those we don’t; those we agree with, those we don’t; all the good, the bad, and the astonishingly ugly, it is all part of what we all, as a people, bear together. 

Either we wrestle a blessing from it, as Jacob showed us how to do, or we fail. Not for nothing is the river besides which he fights that night battle with (himself? an angel?) called Yavok, “struggle.” We can disagree, we can struggle, we can stalk off in a fury; but in every direction all around us is wilderness. Yes, you count; you count as one of us. An imperfect, often erring, usually confused, interconnected people. 

You, I: none of us can do this alone. Together, even with those we don’t like, we all make whatever spiritual journey is beneath our feet to carry out.

Shabbat BaMidbar: Into the Wilderness

Necessary Chaos

In the wilderness your possessions cannot surround you. Your preconceptions cannot protect you. Your logic cannot promise you the future. Your guilt can no longer place you safely in the past. You are left alone each day with an immediacy that astonishes, chastens, and exults. You see the world as if for the first time. – Lawrence Kushner, Honey From the Rock

This week we begin the book BaMidbar, “in the wilderness” – a name coincidentally far more descriptive of the contents of the book than that of the one we just finished reading. With this week’s parashah, we are leaving the shadow of Mt. Sinai and heading into untracked territory, in order to pursue our dream of home.

Anyone who has immersed in Torah study knows that this is the condition in which we will spend the rest of the narrative, not only of BaMidbar but of the following book, Devarim, as well. This is no temporary condition but a forty-year reality – more than that, it is lifelong, since “forty” is used in ancient Israel to mean “a lot” more than an actual number.

That is how our lives feel now, no? We may not be experiencing a geographic wilderness, but the word bamidbar, read without the vowels that were added later in any case, can also be understood to mean in the words or in the speaking. Truly, we wander in a wilderness of words (and images): social media, word of mouth, and so many news outlets. 

It’s no consolation to consider the possibility that this may be a lifelong condition for us, from now on. What may be some consolation is to note that, as we will celebrate on Shavuot, this coming Sunday night June 1 and Monday morning June 2, is that it is in the wilderness, unsettled and frightening as it is, that we receive Torah. Mt. Sinai is not in the land of Israel; it is somewhere, on a peak unidentified until this day, that we had our most profound experience of Eternity.

Our reading for Shavuot is the Aseret haDibrot, the Ten Utterances. They begin with the naming of the holiness the Israelites are meeting: 

אָֽנֹכִ֖י֙ ה’ אֱלֹהֶ֑֔-ךָ אֲשֶׁ֧ר הוֹצֵאתִ֛יךָ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם מִבֵּ֣֥ית עֲבָדִ֑͏ֽים

I ‘ה am your G!d who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage (Ex.20.2)

When Moshe first meets this holiness, this rupture in normality, he asks further, but what is Your Name? The answer is in itself a form of wilderness:

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֱלֹהִ-ם֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה וַיֹּ֗אמֶר כֹּ֤ה תֹאמַר֙ לִבְנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה שְׁלָחַ֥נִי אֲלֵיכֶֽם

G!d said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh: thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3.14)

Ehyeh is not easily defined; it may mean “that which will be” or it may mean “that which is,” which is why one good expression of HaShem’s Name is Eternity. This name of HaShem which we meet in the wilderness is not static, nor defined; it is in process of becoming, without a foothold in the past known or in the future unknown. So is our experience with HaShem, as Rabbi Lawrence Kushner suggests in his Honey From the Rock: 

The wilderness is not just a desert through which we wandered for forty years. It is a way of being. A place that demands being open to the flow of life around you. A place that demands being honest with yourself without regard to the cost in personal anxiety; a place that demands being present with all of yourself….

Now you might say that the promise of such spirited awareness could only keep one with the greatest determination in the wilderness but for a moment or so. That such a way of being would be like breathing pure oxygen. We would live our lives in but a few hours and die of old age. As our ancestors complained, “it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness” (Exodus 14.12).  And indeed, that is your choice.

We might call it the “necessary chaos” which, just like in Genesis, is the precondition for creation. Whatever comes next, for you and for me and for us, cannot be summoned from pre-existing settled definitions and realities, but only from the chaos that ensues when all we thought we knew is challenged.

It’s not comfortable and it’s not sustainable, which is why we are given Shabbat, for rest,  and each other, for reassurance. Torah teaches us that these are the two necessary conditions for surviving the wilderness of words and of geography. We need each other, because this is too much for any one person to cope with. And we need times of rest, like Shabbat and Shavuot, to enter a different mode of living, where we remember what it is  like to be in the Presence of Eternity, and review the lessons for living in adversity that we learn in those moments.