Shabbat Miketz: Why Bother?

“there is no light that does not come from the midst of darkness.” – Zohar, Tetzaveh, 184

This Shabbat is the third day of Hanukkah. In traditional practice, with each night of Hanukkah we add light, symbolizing thereby the sense that, each day that it continued to shine, the light was more and more astounding. The story of this miraculous light, as told by the Sages of the Talmud, depicts the menorah in the Jerusalem temple: the seven-branched lampstand with an oil lamp at the top of each branch. Seven lights kept lit for eight days when, we are told, there was nowhere near enough oil. Each day it was expected to go out; each evening it continued to burn. The light was the same amount of light each day; it was the fact that it continued to shine at the same intensity which constituted the miracle. 

Our parashat hashavua, Miketz, is always read during the holiday of Hanukkah. Naturally, we, the people of midrash, look for the meaning in this juxtaposition. The resonances we sense illuminate something about what we Jews need to learn. Others will sense other meanings; our ancient culture is among many that evoke light at this darkest time of the year. This year, sadly, the Jewish experience of darkness is one of foreboding, and of sadness for what has been lost. Whether we are contemplating the ongoing agony of Israel’s war with Hamas or the trepidation of what the 47th federal administration of the U.S. might bring, it would be understandable if we felt nothing so much as exhaustion during these days that are meant to be celebratory.

At first glance, and even upon sustained inquiry, the story of Joseph and his brothers is not one to offer easy encouragement. The brilliant modern commentator Aviva Zornberg traces in the Torah’s account of Joseph’s reunion with his brothers an uneasy detente, unreconciled hurt and trauma kept below the surface, never healed, for the sake of appearances. So much is broken; what are we left with? Even Jacob, in the same moments when he is reunited with his long lost, much loved son, complains to Pharaoh that his life has been hard and short.

In an ancient midrash that focuses upon the meeting of Joseph and Benjamin in this same uneasy family reunification, both “cry on each other’s necks” ((Bereshit Rabbah 93.12 on Gen 45.14). Why? because they can see that in the future, the sacred place built in the land of Israel in territories associated with both of their tribal descendents will be destroyed. They are weeping over the future destruction of the their family.

It’s enough to evoke existential despair: what’s the point? Why try, when the darkness will, in the end, swallow everything, and extinguish the candle that is the human soul? When all you’ve worked for isn’t enough, when the unthinkable happens and the world you’ve dreamed of will not become real, what is left? As Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) declares, nothing lasts; therefore, does anything matter? 

הֲבֵ֤ל הֲבָלִים֙ אָמַ֣ר קֹהֶ֔לֶת הֲבֵ֥ל הֲבָלִ֖ים הַכֹּ֥ל הָֽבֶל׃ 

Only vanishing mist, vapor, says Kohelet, evanescence and mere appearance, everything is a vanishing mist.

מַה־יִּתְר֖וֹן לָֽאָדָ֑ם בְּכׇ֨ל־עֲמָל֔וֹ שֶֽׁיַּעֲמֹ֖ל תַּ֥חַת הַשָּֽׁמֶשׁ׃ 

Does a person benefit from all the work at which we labor under the sun? (Kohelet 1.2-3)

Jewish ethical teachings, distilled from much disappointment amid many setbacks over too many years to count, offer a different way to understand our life, and challenge the assumption that the work we do should be predicated upon the expectation of reward. The two commentaries below span two millennia of struggle to discern the meaning and purpose of life:

אַל תִּהְיוּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, אֶלָּא הֱווּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב שֶׁלֹּא עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, וִיהִי מוֹרָא שָׁמַיִם עֲלֵיכֶם: 

“Do not be like servants who serve the master in the expectation of receiving a reward, but be like servants who serve the master without the expectation of receiving a reward, and let the fear of Heaven be upon you.” (Pirke Avot 1.3)

שמעתי ממורי ששכר מצוה מצוה (אבות פרק ד’) שאין לך שכר גדול יותר מזה מה שיש לו תענוג ממצוה עצמה בעשותו אותה בשמחה, שהוא מאוד גדול, ואף אם לא היה שכר יותר היה זה עצמו די, מה גם שבאמת יש שכר עד אין תכלית על מצוה שעושין בשמחה:

(תוי”י פ’ קדושים דצ”ט ע”ד).

The Ba’al Shem Tov said, quoting Pirkei Avot (4.2) “The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah. There is no greater reward than that a person delights in performance of a mitzvah. This is a very great thing. Even if there were no other reward, this would be enough. How much greater is it, then, seeing that the reward for a mitzvah done joyfully is infinite.” (Toldos Yaakov Yosef, p. 99d)

It is a mitzvah to light the Hanukkah candles that evoke resilience and hope. Why are we lighting these candles that speak of hope growing in this particular defiance of the darkness? Why bother, why try? 

Because there is in the doing itself a meaning, and we need it. There need not be meaning inherent in the universe for us to require it; how much more incredibly courageous it is, then, to built our house of mitzvot and infuse it with meaning beyond any expectation that “everything will be all right” or that we can confidently expect some prosperity gospel to come true for us. 

This is the higher awe that the mystic Joseph Gikatilla describes in his explanation of the sefirot: 

יראה חיצונית, אהבה למעלה ממנה, יראה פנימית, עולה למעלה מן האהבה

“There is external fear (of suffering), and there is love, which transcends it. However, there is an  inner fear, that is, awe, that ascends even higher than love.” (Shaarey Orah, Ninth Gate, 67)

The fear that life is without reward, perhaps even without meaning, is actually a very low level of spiritual development. The higher level, which is beyond even a kind of love, or enjoyment, of the mitzvot one does for some aesthetic or emotional reason, is of an awe that quiets the self and all its fears. There are things that will always be beyond us. It is not up to us to master them, or anything. A life is a gift; all we have to do is to act in ways that honor that gift. That is the offering we bring to the universe, and to each other.

ס֥וֹף דָּבָ֖ר הַכֹּ֣ל נִשְׁמָ֑ע אֶת־הָאֱלֹהִ֤ים יְרָא֙ וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתָ֣יו שְׁמ֔וֹר כִּי־זֶ֖ה כׇּל־הָאָדָֽם׃ 

The end of the thing, when everything has been heard, is to be in awe of God and to observe the mitzvot, for this is all that a person is. (Kohelet 12.13)

Light the lights. Light all the lights. It does matter. These lights are holy.

Shabbat VaYishlakh: Waiting To See

Looking to the future is normal. Even though it is true that we only have the moment in which we live, we spend most of our moments either looking back and remembering, or looking forward and wondering.

When we are hoping and expecting good times to come, it’s diverting and pleasant to plan for them: we’ll do this, you’ll make sure to remember that, I’ll try not to forget that we want to…

But when we are worried about the future, looking ahead is daunting. For many of us in these last days of 2024, it is difficult not to worry. There are so many possible nightmare scenarios that may plausibly unfold in January of 2025. 

Our parashat hashavua, (Torah parashah of the week) is well-timed to serve as a cautionary tale about anticipating the future. As it opens, Jacob is dying a thousands deaths of anxiety as he struggles through the night before, as he and his brother are about to be reunited after many years. Jacob is pretty sure that Esau is going to try to kill him, or will, at the very least, be nursing a long-held angry grudge against the brother who stole from him his birthright and the blessing meant for him as firstborn. 

As it turns out, he’s wrong; his brother has forgiven and forgotten. Jacob has – incorrectly and expensively – misjudged his own future.

In the final third of the parashah, where we begin in this third year of the Triennial Cycle of Torah study, we see another moment of anticipation, this time cruelly stealing from Jacob and Rachel  a moment that should be celebratory, as she is giving birth to her second child:

וַיְהִ֥י בְהַקְשֹׁתָ֖הּ בְּלִדְתָּ֑הּ וַתֹּ֨אמֶר לָ֤הּ הַמְיַלֶּ֙דֶת֙ אַל־תִּ֣ירְאִ֔י כִּֽי־גַם־זֶ֥ה לָ֖ךְ בֵּֽן׃ 

When her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Have no fear, for it is another boy for you.” (Get. 35.17)

As it turns out, she’s wrong. There was much to fear, for Rachel was dying in childbirth. Unexpected death (and life) dominates the end of the parashah, for when Jacob completes the trek home from Padam Aram, he finds that his father, who we assumed was dying over twenty years ago (hence the firstborn blessing chaos at the time) is still alive, at 180 years old!

וַיָּבֹ֤א יַעֲקֹב֙ אֶל־יִצְחָ֣ק אָבִ֔יו מַמְרֵ֖א קִרְיַ֣ת הָֽאַרְבַּ֑ע הִ֣וא חֶבְר֔וֹן אֲשֶׁר־גָּֽר־שָׁ֥ם אַבְרָהָ֖ם וְיִצְחָֽק׃ 

And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, at Kiriath-arba—now Hebron—where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned. (Gen. 35.27)

Parashat VaYishlakh is named for Jacob’s attempt to respond to a future reality that never does manifest, in attempting to safeguard himself from a threat that he anticipates, but that does not exist. He loses a great deal by this fearful foreshadowing, and most of all his attention is drawn away from the true reality of the moment. He sends his brother a huge gift of flocks and herds, all for nothing; and later, he loses the one sheep that matters to him (Rachel’s name derives from the Hebrew for an ewe.)

Moshe de Leon, channeler of the Zohar, points out that one way to understand the word חכמה hokhmah, “wisdom”, is to see it as two words: הכה hakeh “wait” and מה mah, “what”; from this he derives the insight that a form of wisdom is knowing how to wait and see what will be.

Jacob demonstrates the difficulty we all experience when we attempt to envision our future reality, and become invested enough in it to prepare for it, only to find that we have anticipated incorrectly. Something deep within us wants to prepare, to steel ourselves for the blow. But in so doing we may not be able to see the real blow coming at us.

Jewish ethics offers us a different way: rather than focus on the future we imagine, pay attention to the present moment which is at hand. 

Notice the beauty in this day; find joy in some piece of now. 

Be who and what you can be in this moment, by responding to the world you are in right now. 

Find the good in it and revel in it right now. 

Notice and immerse your self in the light of one small candle of goodness right now.

There is much to celebrate right now, regardless of what happens tomorrow. 

Focus upon it; let it warm you.

Shabbat VaYetze: Rough Neighborhood

not every boundary, or border, is healthy

אַל־תַּ֭סֵּג גְּב֣וּל עוֹלָ֑ם אֲשֶׁ֖ר עָשׂ֣וּ אֲבוֹתֶֽיךָ׃ 

Do not move the long-standing boundary marker which your ancestors have established – Mishle (Proverbs) 22.28

In this, the third year of the Triennial Cycle of Torah, we discover the benefits of having our attention forced away from the marquee event (Jacob’s vision of a ladder) to the more subtle lessons of Shabbat VaYetze. Our reading of the parashah, two-thirds of the way through it,begins with Jacob, Leah and Rachel agreeing that the time has come to leave their family of origin in Padan Aram in order to move to Jacob’s family dwelling in Canaan.

The in-law relationship between Jacob and Laban has been tense and the parting is no different. The two finally agree to go their separate ways by way of setting a boundary marker between them, 

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יַעֲקֹ֤ב לְאֶחָיו֙ לִקְט֣וּ אֲבָנִ֔ים וַיִּקְח֥וּ אֲבָנִ֖ים וַיַּֽעֲשׂוּ־גָ֑ל וַיֹּ֥אכְלוּ שָׁ֖ם עַל־הַגָּֽל׃ 

And Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” So they took stones and made a mound; and they partook of a meal there by the mound. 

וַיִּקְרָא־ל֣וֹ לָבָ֔ן יְגַ֖ר שָׂהֲדוּתָ֑א וְיַֽעֲקֹ֔ב קָ֥רָא ל֖וֹ גַּלְעֵֽד׃ 

Laban named it Yegar-sahadutha, but Jacob named it Gal-ed.

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר לָבָ֔ן הַגַּ֨ל הַזֶּ֥ה עֵ֛ד בֵּינִ֥י וּבֵינְךָ֖ הַיּ֑וֹם עַל־כֵּ֥ן קָרָֽא־שְׁמ֖וֹ גַּלְעֵֽד׃ 

And Laban declared, “This mound is a witness between you and me this day.” That is why it was named Gal-ed; 

וְהַמִּצְפָּה֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָמַ֔ר יִ֥צֶף ה’ בֵּינִ֣י וּבֵינֶ֑ךָ כִּ֥י נִסָּתֵ֖ר אִ֥ישׁ מֵרֵעֵֽהוּ׃ 

and [it was called] Mizpah, because he said, “May ‘ה watch [tz.p.h] between you and me, when we are out of sight of each other. (Genesis 31.46-49)

In these moments we are witnessing the establishment of a healthy boundary between two people who, at best, are going to agree to disagree. Notice that they are able share a meal together (an important part of a two-party pact) without even agreeing on what the boundary should be named! 

In a living tradition such as Judaism, boundaries – of law, custom, and habit – must be humanly flexible to be alive. Dr Menachem Fisch teaches that you can see Jewish law as a living thing, and watch it breath out and in as it flexes in some ages to incorporate new interpretations of a law, and contracts in others to codify and settle that new understanding. 

A 19th century rabbi, the Hatam Sofer, reads something of this into Jacob’s response when Laban accuses him of having stolen his “household gods [elohim]”: הַֽכֶּר־לְךָ֛ מָ֥ה עִמָּדִ֖י – look at what is with me (Gen. 31.32). Rabbi Moshe Sofer explains:

Jacob put his faith in Elohim Hayim, the living G*d, source of creation, and Laban put his into wood and stone carvings….this is the essential question: “look at what is with me” in order to recognize [whether one has] a living faith. (Itturei Torah, VaYetze, 277)

We set boundaries based on what we believe. Although respecting boundaries is a long-established concept in our people’s culture, then as now, judgement devolves upon whether the boundary is healthy. Does the boundary protect life and allow it to thrive, or is it strangling life?

Consider that the various boundaries you may impose on others—and on yourself as well—are all designed (however unconsciously) for self-protection. For the most part, they’re to keep others from taking advantage of you, or to hold them at whatever distance you deem necessary to feel safe. But what if your needs for safety (whether physical, mental, or emotional) are exaggerated? distorted? or self-sabotaging? In short, what if they’re dysfunctional? What if they undermine other needs, which you may be less aware of but which are actually more vital to your happiness or welfare? And here I’m referring to such universally held needs and desires as the full, non-constrained expression of self. Or—because we’re all social animals at heart—the need to share yourself intimately with others, and have them do the same with you. (Leon Seltzer PhD, “Are Your Boundaries Making You Miserable?” Psychology Today)

Boundaries, walls, fences, borders: in a rough neighborhood, well-justified fear can cause us to overdo it. So much that blocks growth and even awareness comes with the walls that are obstructing our sight lines. 

After the Second Intifada (2000-2005), Israel’s prime minister Ariel Sharon initiated a Separation Wall which may have lowered suicide bombing rates (that was its intent)  but also cut off nearly all social contact between Israelis and Palestinians. Is there a link between it and many Israelis’ difficulty in empathizing with Palestinians twenty years later? 

Coincidentally, in 2000 Dr Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone, in which he asks why U.S. democracy is in crisis. One of his insights was that 20th century amenities such as television, air conditioning  and fences brought an end to relationships between people who had seen each other on a regular basis from their porches or at shared entertainment. A recent documentary is available on Netflix for your perusal: Join Or Die.  

Jews, whose lives are predicated upon the assumption of community, should have an advantage here when creating respectful flexible living boundaries for ourselves and each other. But U.S. Jews have lost some of that communal wisdom (we have TVs too, and far too few of us take part in intentional community). 

Yet we do have community, and the stories in our culture carry so many fascinating lessons that can shed welcome light on what is obstructing our vision now. This is not a time for fencing oneself in unto social isolation; while circling the wagons is necessary, we need to continue to be able to breathe, and to welcome that which supports life. As Jacob suggests through the interpretation of the Hatam Sofer: look at what is with you and see, is your belief rooted in life?

Shabbat Toldot: Parental Blessings, Sibling Rivalry

As we enter the most difficult time of the year for those who feel any kind of pain or regret related to their family of origin, our Torah offers for our consideration an ancient story of family discord. It touches upon favoritism vs aptitude, truth vs smoothing relationships, avoidance vs honesty. Most of all, though, it bears witness to the heartbreak too many of us experience in our relationships with parents, siblings, and offspring.

So much can go wrong in a family! and underneath it all, the longing for love.

The story of Jacob’s usurpation from Esau of the blessing meant for the eldest in his family is a painful one to read: Isaac is lied to and fooled by Rivkah and Jacob in cahoots against Esau, and poor Esau is the absolute picture of desolation when his dreams for his future are dashed. Unlike the midrash that ensues from the story (which justifies Jacob), the Torah brings us into Esau’s broken heart at the moment he realizes that his mother and twin brother have betrayed him profoundly, and the human suffering is hard to read.

We are not offered much in the way of understanding what the parents may have been thinking; there is midrash that suggests that Isaac was playing along, and actually agreed with Rivkah’s successful scheme to get the blessing meant for Esau bestowed upon Jacob. He may have been blind in his old age, our ancestors argue, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to distinguish between his children! And what about Jacob stealing the blessing? well, Rashi informs us that Jacob is really the firstborn: he was actually conceived of first, although he was the second of the twins to emerge into the world.

How much we are all willing to twist and contort justifications and explanations when the only other possibility is to say Jacob was wrong, Rivkah was wrong, and Esau was wronged – and Isaac’s disability was abused. Or: how far we will go to keep from having to say to Esau’s face that his aptitude is not for the content of the blessings Isaac will bestow.

O the aching distance between parent and child! Psychology teaches what theology intuits: we begin life physically connected to another human body, and must separate, at birth, in order to survive and thrive – yet paradoxically our human existence is one of loneliness unless and until we are able to connect to others in loving, intimate and sustainable ways.

It must be said: not every parent is a good parent. And not every child is able to be just in judgement of their parent. Jewish tradition insists that we are to honor our parents – unless they require of us dishonorable behavior. If your parent wants you to sin with them, you must refuse. There is no equivalent command to “honor” one’s children, but much that is demanded of our Jewish community is dedicated to making sure our children thrive: all of us are expected to help create the social conditions for the next generation to grow up and take their turn joyfully in the dance of generations, even if we do not bear children ourselves.

Esau plans to kill Jacob in response; Jacob flees immediately, sent by mom to her family back in the old country. The fracture of the primary set of relationships represented by family is so often inevitable, for so many complicated reasons – yet we need to learn a fundamental truth of human existence conveyed by our tradition’s deep understanding of human nature: we cannot bypass our need for human connection if we would be whole. We cannot do without it. We are not built to be happy by ourselves – nor mentally healthy – any more than we can support our existence without a web of social and physical connection.

This is why we create families of choice if we cannot maintain connection with our family of origin. And this is where deep levels of community become vital to our ability to learn better ways of relating: lying one’s way out of a difficult situation may seem easiest but it never is. 

Our tradition teaches that we, who are all broken in some way, seek wholeness; we all hurt. Empathy may not always be possible, but compassion is, if we choose to exercise that capacity. In this understanding is our only hope not to fall into cynicism and despair. The next time someone hurts you, consider what may be going on for them. Consider that you may not even be their true “target”. Most of the time, most of us are struggling with internal challenges, and too often the people we interact with are only the bystanders of our personal drama.

The gift of kindness is radical: you can give it regardless of whether someone “deserves” it in your (surface) estimation of their character. You can also receive it in that same generous way. It is a free choice: to let the inevitable wounds of the heart control one’s acts, or to respond to the narrowness of fear with the expansiveness of love.

Astonishingly, that’s exactly what Esau does; but that’s a story for another week.

shabbat shalom

_______________________________

Rule One of all rules one:

No one ever knows

how much another hurts. You. Kate. Ray. Randall. Me.

The nurses who were kind to you, the gaspump kid

across the bridge, the waitress here

this noon.

No one ever knows.
Or maybe in a thousand, one
has the toughness to,
to care,
to give, beyond a selfish pity. Even any given day,

given weathers, detours, chances of what look like luck,

if we feel bad we refuse the givens.

What blighted lives we lead. Or follow:


showering, feeding, changing shirts or
pants, working, as one used to say,
to make ourselves presentable.

Partial strangers to our painful selves,
we’re still stranger to
diminished friends
when they appear
to hurt.

How much we fail them,
failing to come close:
a parent, newly single, in Seattle;
an upstate poet in intensive care.

You. Blanche. Alvin. Sue.

Who hurts

and why.


Why we guess we know.
How much we never.

– Philip Booth

Shabbat Hayye Sarah: The Opposite of Despair

If you have been watching the news with anything like the frequency of the average person in the U.S. over the past few weeks, you may rightly be feeling overwhelmed. The urge to despair is strong for those of us who believe that the most recent election results are catastrophic for human rights, civil rights, and social welfare in the U.S. 

Times like this require us to look inside of ourselves for the inner strength that we can call upon in order not to despair. In Jewish tradition, as philosopher Moshe Halbertal puts it, “the opposite of despair is commitment, not hope.”

Hope may be understood as a peak moment in life; the end result of slogging up a mountain peak for the view we know is only visible up there. It does not take the place of the commitment required to get oneself up that mountain. It’s a commitment not only to personal fitness, but to communal welfare, and in these days of the ultra competition of Late Stage Capitalism, this can be quite the subversive idea. Each person matters. If we don’t all get there, it means nothing if I get there.

We know that archaeologists have discovered evidence that ancient peoples didn’t leave the wounded or disabled behind, but valued each human life for what it could offer to the well being of the whole. If, then, there is no such thing as linear progress in human development, there is one more reason to immerse ourselves in the wisdom tradition of our people to find support for our own time. And sure enough, this week in our parashat hashavua we find another passage that we might celebrate as rather subversive, for today:

The chief of Abraham’s household has come to the ancestral family home in Ur to seek a partner for Isaak. Rivkah seems to fit the need in every way, and Abraham’s representative seems to assume that as long as the family agrees, Rivkah will go with him. But their response is far more respectful of her:

וַיֹּאמְר֖וּ נִקְרָ֣א לַֽנַּעֲרָ֑ וְנִשְׁאֲלָ֖ה אֶת־פִּֽיהָ׃ 

And they said, “Let us call the girl and ask for her reply.” (Get 24.57)

You may not have expected support for women’s rights in an ancient text that too many have slandered and twisted until it is a cudgel used to enslave and persecute – but that is not its true nature. Torah is far more human than the average person using its words to hurt someone. That’s the uniquely Jewish insight that you can only gain from joining in a community that immerses itself in Torah – not looking for justification but for light, and not hoping for magic potions but needing a moment of reprieve from fear.

To approach these frightening days as a Jew is to be supported by a culture that has certain expectations of you and for you: first, that you do not “doomscroll” every day, but take Shabbat off. Second, that you answer your personal need for community support by joining in Torah Study, the source of our people’s communal and emotional strength. And third, because when we are together we are able to strengthen each other’s commitment to getting up that mountain together, to enjoy the occasional sunny moment of hope.

We who reside in Portland Oregon know better than to sing that “the sun’ll come out tomorrow,” because we know that when winter arrives, it rains nearly without ceasing. We who are Jews know better than to simply sit and hope for the best, because it could be a while. Better to stay focused on the small actions that fulfill our commitment to our Jewish path, and thus nurture and sustain us as we look out for each other.

Now is a time to wait, and watch – and immerse yourself in community study.

Shabbat VaYera: Apocalypse Now

apokalysis, the Greek word for “revelation”, means not “ending” but “unveiling”…not “closure” but “disclosure” – that is, opening. A chance to open our eyes? But to what?

-Ayana Mathis, “Imprinted by Belief: Apocalypse” NYTimes book review April 21 2024

Only four weeks ago we began again to immerse ourselves in the endless sea of Torah study, by starting over with Bereshit, the first words of the first book. This week’s parashat hashavua is named VaYera, “s/he sees”. In it we encounter a narrative pre-occupied with pregnancy and birth.

In this parashah there are at least two female characters, and a revolving cast of males; one, or possibly two, conceptions which are created by the meeting of divine and human; and to make it more curious, it’s not clear who is human and who is divine.

And you thought that you saw a clearcut story of the patriarch Abraham settling down in the land of Canaan? but that is just a later overlay of interpretation, facilitated by translation, abetted by editing and redaction of text. The original strands of the story, as far as scholars are able to trace them, are very much in line with other Mesopotamian myths of origins: in all of them, humans are descended from divine beings, and it’s not clear how much of each of us is from each of those categories.

Or, as Carl Sagan put it, we are all made of stardust; as HaShem hints to Abraham last week, back in Genesis 15.5:

וַיּוֹצֵ֨א אֹת֜וֹ הַח֗וּצָה וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ הַבֶּט־נָ֣א הַשָּׁמַ֗יְמָה וּסְפֹר֙ הַכּ֣וֹכָבִ֔ים אִם־תּוּכַ֖ל לִסְפֹּ֣ר אֹתָ֑ם וַיֹּ֣אמֶר ל֔וֹ כֹּ֥ה יִהְיֶ֖ה זַרְעֶֽךָ׃ 

[HaShem] took him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them, so shall your offspring be.”

What we see, in other words, is what we are expecting to see, or are prepared to see – or are told that we see. On this Shabbat, what do you see? 

Something is being born. But something is always being born. Some of us may see only a growing storm, and darkness slouching our way (and our local Portland weather certainly encourages that impression!). But what we see in our lives and in our future is as tempered by our expectations, and our fears, and our hopes, as is our sense of what we see when we read Torah. 

This parashat hashavua, the “reading of the week”, is all about the future and how to meet it. How to see it, how to nurture what is born, how to respond to what one sees – and what it looks like to fail in that work. Abraham is an extended example of this. In several places HaShem has to keep correcting him: “listen to your wife [she’s right]” (Gen. 21.12) and “don’t touch the boy!” (Gen. 22.12). In others he gets himself in trouble by lying, and HaShem has to rescue him.

Now see: look at Sarah and at Hagar; by the end of this parashah, both are mothers of children who are each blessed by HaShem to be the progenitor of a nation. This is Torah-speak for success and happiness. Look at the results; look where the women stand at the end of this story. Consider all you thought you knew about this famous and infamous parashah. 

Sometimes Torah learning consists of discovering how much we have not seen, or how much we have seen incorrectly. On this Shabbat of apprehension and dread over what is to come in this country, consider the strength – and the obstruction – of what you want to believe you see, and what those who would manipulate your vision are offering you, in the messages you observe, in all the media you are exposed to.

Those who would rule over you first must convince you that no other future can be envisioned. If unveiling new views of Torah demonstrates anything, it is that nothing, nothing that you believe to be inevitable is necessarily so. This is the ultimate holiness of the text: it is powerful because it cannot and will not be distilled down to one message. That is not only frustrating, it is also endlessly hopeful.

Tonight light your Shabbat candles in the name of hope, and in their light may you see light.

Shabbat Lekh L’kha: Avraham did nothing (alone)

עֲשָׂרָה שֶׁיּוֹשְׁבִין וְעוֹסְקִין בַּתּוֹרָה, שְׁכִינָה שְׁרוּיָה בֵינֵיהֶם

Ten who are sitting together and engaging in Torah, the Divine Presence rests among them (Pirke Avot 3.6)

In our parashat hashavua, the weekly reading of the Torah, we begin the story of Abraham (originally Avram) who is seen as the ancestor of the Jewish people. As our tradition preserves the myth, Avraham is the עברי ivri, a word which literally means “one who crosses over.” Avraham is an immigrant from Mesopotamia (the area which is today Iraq) and it is this identity which defines him, and all of us after him who are part of the community then called Ivrim, Hebrews. 

This is the “great man” approach to history. It is one way to interpret human experience and turn it into a narrative. We are very familiar with this way of telling the human story: it is the habit of believing that individuals make history. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves; Alexander the Great conquered the world; Moshe Rabbenu led the Jews out of Egypt.

The “great man” theory of history is convenient for simple storytelling. It’s also wildly wrong, and, what’s more, it erases the real stories of what happens to us. It is clear that no one person can make history, really: the circumstances of our lives are made up of a myriad of confusing, conflicting, mostly unsensed words, and acts, and expectations, and assumptions.

The “great man” theory of history is a lazy way to understand existence. And it is an inevitable if mistaken outgrowth of our dependence upon the modern idea that we, as individuals, have the potential to change the world, when in actuality, all we have the potential to do is to agree with enough others to make something happen, whether it’s a barn raising, or an election, or a war. 

Abraham didn’t do anything alone. We’re not even sure that Abraham was the primary actor in his story; evidence indicates that his partners, Sarah and Hagar, and later Keturah, are independent actors with their own agendas (to literally see this plainly in the text, look at the way that Leah and Rachel decide how Jacob will spend the night in Genesis 30.14-18). We only know the story they way transmitters assumed it should be told; we don’t know what else was erased by the decisions they made.

What are you assuming today, after Tuesday’s monumental Election Day and its truly frightening aftermath, with newly emboldened thugs already seeking to persecute the vulnerable?  What does our assumption about the capacity of the individual say to us right now: that one person can upend everything about our lives? That it has happened before? That the U.S. democracy is now inevitably ended?

This is the enervating poison of the belief in individual agency, the dark flip side of the encouragement we give each other that each one of us is special and capable of great things. That is the simple truth. The complex truth, however, is that you and I as individuals are capable of very little unless we are united in our efforts with others with whom we share not only common purpose but trust, reliance, and awareness that I can do nothing without you.

During the years 2017-2020, Trump didn’t incarcerate thousands of immigrant children separated from their parents; he probably didn’t lift a personal hand to add a single string of barbed wire to a concentration camp. A whole lot of other people all agreed to help make the horrors he envisioned into the trauma too many innocents suffered. 

And l’havdil (not comparing the two individuals) Abraham didn’t create a people; we did, the ערב רב “erev rav” (mixed multitude) that went out of Egypt afraid but committed to each other, over many years of walking and stumbling and trying again to discern the path we are meant to take together through the wildnerness of this life and its promises and dangers. That is why there is another origin story preserved in our sacred text, that of parashat HaAzinu: 

יִמְצָאֵ֙הוּ֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִדְבָּ֔ר        וּבְתֹ֖הוּ יְלֵ֣ל יְשִׁמֹ֑ן יְסֹבְבֶ֙נְהוּ֙ יְב֣וֹנְנֵ֔הוּ        יִצְּרֶ֖נְהוּ כְּאִישׁ֥וֹן עֵינֽוֹ

HaShem found them in a desert region, in an empty howling waste; engirded them, watched over them, guarded them as the pupil of the eye. (Deut. 32.10)

Them, not him, or her – a people, not a “great man.” No individual shapes the world. No individual can do everything, or, really, anything, without cooperation and collaboration. Individuality is a dangerous myth when it leads us to feeling that there is nothing we can do, since an individual has won an election. 

There’s a lot you can do now, but, frankly, none of it can be done alone. This is the time for belonging. If you are not a member of some group of people upon whom you can rely for a sense of belonging, now is the time to remedy that lack in your life. 

It may be difficult at first to realize that the silly slogan of our time, “I’m just not a joiner” has always been a self-delusion. We may each have to do some dis-assembly of parts of the story we’ve been telling ourselves about our individuality, and strike out, like Abraham, but more like Sarah and Hagar who made common cause (according to the actual text!) toward a new understanding of the world and our place in it. 

Fulfilling one’s destiny as one of the ivrim, the Hebrews, means that crossing over must still be an important part of the defining story of who we Jews are: from the known to the unknown, not as a solitary individual in some self-deluded sense of individual capacity, but rather with the sobering realization that we all are in need, most of all, of each other. No one person is a kehillah, a community, and that we are meant to be in community.

חזק חזק ונתחזק

hazak, hazak v’nit’hazek

May we find our strength in each other, and so find HaShem

Shabbat Noah: The End of the World As We Know It (and I feel fine?)

אלה תולדות נח [נח איש צדיק תמים היה בדורותיו] א”ר יוחנן בדורותיו ולא בדורות אחרים וריש לקיש אמר בדורותיו כ”ש בדורות אחרים 

With regard to the verse: These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a righteous man, and wholehearted in his generations (Genesis 6:9), 

Rabbi Yoḥanan says: Relative to the other people of his generation he was righteous and wholehearted, but not relative to those of other generations. 

Reish Lakish says: In his generation he was righteous and wholehearted despite being surrounded by bad influences; all the more so would he have been considered righteous and wholehearted in other generations. (BT Sanhedrin 108a)

Today (I am posting this on Wednesday, the day after U.S. Election Day, even though it is last Shabbat’s parashah) feels like the end of the world. And so I’d like to offer you a thought based on the fact that human beings have faced and coped with and been defeated by and got up again in the face of absolute disaster many, many times in human history.

Consider the ancient story of the Great Flood. This story is retold in sagas all over the ancient Mesopotamian world as a disaster which ended all life – except for a saving remnant from which life was continued. The world seems to have ended, and yet: the disaster ends, the catastrophe recedes, the war ends…the Flood ebbs away. The Bible relates nothing of Noah’s mental state, but in catastrophic situations there are two human responses: either to act to cope, or to give up and be swallowed up by the chaos.

Noah was presented with the end of the world as he knew it. It would have been understandable if he had judged the situation to be terminally hopeless, and refused to continue living under the circumstances. But Noah, when surrounded by the muddy devastation of the aftermath of the great Flood, pulls himself together and starts to plant. He raises a grape vine. He nurtures life in the shadow of the great death.

Confronting large scale disaster by planting a grape vine, a symbol of joy, is a demonstration of anti-apocalypse thinking. It’s not “all or nothing”; it’s not going to be all over, even if it is over for me or for you. There will still be life to nurture. May we do our human ancestors proud by adopting their stubborn capacity to focus on beautiful small things even in the midst of so much that seems to be looming disaster: may we look out for, nurture, and protect the small, momentary, everyday lives of all those we interact with. 

Come, my friends; consider what is in your hands to plant, and to nurture. In so doing may you find support to nurture the hope that keeps you going.

Shabbat Bereshit: Beginning Again, With You

The Thing Is

To love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

Ellen Bass

Now we begin again. This is, after all, the reality of our lives, as we are lucky enough to be alive: every morning is a new beginning. Jewish tradition gifts us with ways to contemplate what would otherwise go unmarked: whenever you choose to take part in it, you are able to live a moment more deeply. This is a moment of beginning. But what is a new beginning, when one has begun so many times before?

There are constants, of course, for as long as we live: we breathe, we need, we yearn. Similarly, the Torah is always there, always the same words. But such is the extent of what is the same. Experience changes us, and perforce changes what we behold as well. We are taught that there are seventy faces to Torah; seventy ways to understand each story, each verse, each word. 

In this week’s parashah, we encounter a world of beginnings. Let this invitation refresh our vision and open us to new learnings. The Torah is the same, but you and I are renewed, and through our relationship with Torah and with each other, we will find new insights to strengthen and support us through the days to come.

At Rosh HaShanah, the day we dedicate to encouraging each other and ourselves to believe in renewal, we considered what it means to be gathered together. What is the difference between a roomful of people and a kehillah kedoshah, a “holy community”, which is the traditional designation of a Jewish congregation?

This week, our Torah offers us the only bedrock certainty we will ever have. From our creation story, we know that it is a fundamental teaching that we are created in the Image of G*d. That is to say, all life is a reflection of Life and proceeds from its Source. The mystics derive from this an insight parallel to the modern scientific theory of the Big Bang: all of us are part of an explosion of life out of the same overflowing source. We each come from it, equally, and we each are made of it. Thus we reflect it.

Riffing on this idea as only a mystic would, the sage Isaiah Horowitz quoted the book of Job: מבסרי אחזה אלוה – “from my body I will see G*d” (Iyov 19.26) While Job may have meant this to say “while I am alive,” the Jewish understanding that there is more than one way to understand any text allows him to suggest the idea that this is about introspection: from contemplating the physical body, one moves toward an understanding of how one reflects holiness. 

From our flesh we see HaShem. Not from denying our body, or rising above it, but from it, including it as we learn and grow toward the kind of personal integrity that is the prerequisite for relationships with others and a sense of one’s meaning in the world.

Each of us, then, reflects something equally precious and true about Life and its Source. As our kehillah continues to grow, meaning precisely that new reflections of Life are joining us, the palette of our shared experience expands in color and in depth. As the mystics suggest, it’s like sunlight coming through a window: it’s all brightness and light. Put a few bottles of different colored glass in the window, and suddenly you have different colored light. Put in a complicated stained glass window, and now your sunlight is a myriad of shades and hues.

We consider a stained glass window beautiful. Why not behold the variety of our community in exactly the same way?

Some of us are old, some young. Some are middle class, some are living paycheck to paycheck, and some are wealthy. Some of us are parents, some grandparents, and some do not have children. Some of us are healthy and some of us are chronically ill, or struggling with an acute ailment. Some of us converted to Judaism and others grew up with a Jewish parent who may or may not have transmitted a sense of Jewish belonging. Some of us are disabled physically or mentally. Some of us are heterosexual and some are queer; some of us are trans and some are cisgender. Some of us are female, some male, some are elsewhere on a spectrum that is every bit as varied as the window in the Gaudi cathedrale in Barcelona pictured above.

But these are all just the colors of the glass, that “glass” that we are taught to see as having seventy different colors. Beyond it all, we are each of us made of the same Light. Why ask if you belong? Why entertain for a single moment, rather, the idea that you do not?

It’s not necessarily easy to find one’s place in a varied multiscape, but monolithism is boring and, in the end, inimical to Life, which is about growth through adapting to change and variation.

Here we are, beginning again. May we begin again to try again to see HaShem reflected, not only in our own flesh, but in each other’s. Not because we look the same, but precisely because we do not.

Shabbat Ki Tavo: Change Is The Only Certainty

וּנְתַנֶּה תֹּקֶף קְדֻשַּׁת הַיּוֹם כִּי הוּא נוֹרָא וְאָיֹם וּבוֹ תִּנָּשֵׂא מַלְכוּתֶךָ וְיִכּוֹן בְּחֶסֶד כִּסְאֶךָ וְתֵשֵׁב עָלָיו בְּאֱמֶת  

We recognize the power of the holiness of this day; it is terrifying and awesome, and on it we see that we are overwhelmed, we are caught by truth, and we are desperately in need of compassion. (Unetaneh Tokef prayer from the High Holy Days Musaf Amidah)

The discourse around the difficulty of change often evokes the idea that the unknown is the most terrifying of human challenges. Change is avoided because uncertainty is uncomfortable; change is difficult to effect because we seek safety, which is not found in the unknown future but in the “devil you know”, i.e. the well-known present, even if unpleasant.

But the only constant our lives know is change. It happens every day, in the constant processes of our reality: growth and in decay, development and destruction, birth and in death. Despite that which longs for stasis, there is an inevitable movement in our lives.

Survival has always required the ability to adapt successfully. For our ancestors at the cusp of the land of promise, the home they’ve longed for, adaptation – change – is now required. Is it any wonder that the entire book of Deuteronomy sees them located in one place, the steppes of Moab, clearly trying to get up the sufficient collective courage to take the necessary step into the unknown?

Change is hard. Yet on Rosh HaShanah and all through the fall hagim, we focus upon the possibility of change. Change is key in our human journey toward wholeness. The message that change is not only possible, but is that which redeems us, is repeated over and over throughout the holy days, as Rabbi Yitzhak asserts: 

וְאָמַר רַבִּי יִצְחָק: אַרְבָּעָה דְּבָרִים מְקָרְעִין גְּזַר דִּינוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם, אֵלּוּ הֵן: צְדָקָה, צְעָקָה, שִׁינּוּי הַשֵּׁם, וְשִׁינּוּי מַעֲשֶׂה. צְדָקָה, דִּכְתִיב: ״וּצְדָקָה תַּצִּיל מִמָּוֶת״. צְעָקָה, דִּכְתִיב: ״וַיִּצְעֲקוּ אֶל ה׳ בַּצַּר לָהֶם וּמִמְּצוּקוֹתֵיהֶם יוֹצִיאֵם״. שִׁינּוּי הַשֵּׁם, דִּכְתִיב: ״שָׂרַי אִשְׁתְּךָ לֹא תִקְרָא אֶת שְׁמָהּ שָׂרָי כִּי שָׂרָה שְׁמָהּ״, וּכְתִיב: ״וּבֵרַכְתִּי אוֹתָהּ וְגַם נָתַתִּי מִמֶּנָּה לְךָ בֵּן״. שִׁינּוּי מַעֲשֶׂה, דִּכְתִיב: ״וַיַּרְא הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת מַעֲשֵׂיהֶם״, וּכְתִיב: ״וַיִּנָּחֶם הָאֱלֹהִים עַל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לָהֶם וְלֹא עָשָׂה״. 

Rabbi Yitzḥak said: A person’s sentence is torn up on account of four types of actions. These are: Giving tzedakah, crying out in prayer, a change of one’s name, and a change of one’s deeds for the better. An allusion may be found in Scripture for all of them: Giving charity, as it is written: “And tzedakah delivers from death” (Proverbs 10:2); crying out in prayer, as it is written: “Then they cry to HaShem in their trouble, and HaShem brings them out of their distresses” (Psalms 107:28); a change of one’s name, as it is written: “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be” (Genesis 17:15), and it is written there: “And I will bless her, and I will also give you a child from her” (Genesis 17:16); a change of one’s deeds for the better, as it is written: “And God saw their deeds” (Jonah 3:10), and it is written there: “And God repented of the evil, which HaShem had said would happen to them, and did not do it” (Jonah 3:10). (BT Rosh HaShanah 16b)

From this ancient belief we derive not only the modern Israeli saying משנה מקום משנה מזל m’shaneh makom m’shaneh mazal, “change your place, change your luck” but also the widespread superstition that if someone is in danger of dying, one way to help them is to change their Hebrew name, so that the Angel of Death cannot find them. (I do this readily when the occasion arises.)

Interestingly, in our Unetaneh Tokef prayer, a name change is the one act that is not included, perhaps because it is the most easily abused of the paths of change – if you can change your name to cheat death, it’s too easy a temptation to cheat one’s creditors similarly.

That leaves us with צדקה Tzedakah, תפילה Tefilah, and תשובה Teshuvah as the keys to the kind of change that allows for successful adaptation throughout our lives. As we near the date of Rosh Hashanah, with Yom Kippur looming close beyond, it can all seem like too much. 

I believe that Rabbi Yitzhak is trying to offer us encouragement. If teshuvah seems too hard to get a handle on, would it be possible to effect personal change for the better by praying more, or more intently, with more emotional investment in “crying out”? Perhaps: if we understand prayer to be a regular exercise in self-reflection, in line with the actual meaning of the Hebrew word, “to judge oneself.” And might it be possible to effect personal change for the better by focusing more on meaningful tzedakah? To believe in one’s power to do justice through giving of oneself, in many small ways that we might dismiss as “not enough” when we are too focused on trying to save the world somehow.

One way to learn from the recurrence of High Holy Days every year is to see that while the days contain the same message every year, we are – inevitably – different, so there is a real chance that meaningful change has occurred, or is possible. One way to look at ourselves during this time is over time, rather than as a static reality; when you look back over the past year, or over five or ten, could you ever imagine where you would find yourself? 

One way to engage in change is to embrace its inevitability and believe in your – in our – shared capacity not only to meet the moment, but to thrive. Not to conquer the moment and move on, but to adapt to the idea of constancy, rather than a moment of triumph, as the best kind of change. As this High Holy Days of 5785 comes close, with all the overwhelm that life brings us every day, may we not only recognize our need for compassion from each other and ourselves in the face of truth, but also be able to see our ability to find joy in it.

That’s the sacred power of this day; may we recognize it.