Shemot

By Chaim Kline, January 6, 2024

When I was recently on an academic study tour to Florence, Italy I had the privilege of spending a number of hours in the Uffizi gallery and library.

Later that night when thinking back on the 100’s of Madonna and child I had seen I imagined the life of a Jew living in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries surrounded by the images of the dominate cultures beliefs and besought by some of its adherents to follow their practice and adopt their belief.

Since the 10th century Jews in Christian Europe predominately lived in mercantile towns and dwelt in small clusters usually near the town center or near the main cathedral….  They variously materially and intellectually flourished and suffered death and expulsion.

Reflecting on this historical backdrop I began to think about community, memory, practice, and belief.

What was it like to be a Jew in a hostile environment… how does one retain their identity …

And how much more so when the Judaism of the Mishna, Talmud and codes were non-existent.

(I read a number of articles after which I saw that I was no match for the question and so turned to a different tack.)

Most of us will find the phrase that the generation of the Exodus had fallen to the 49^th level of Tumah, familiar.  The specific source is quite late found – in the Zohar Yitro 31:1

Tumah is usually translated as impurity or contamination – it may here also be understood to be degradation and assimilation.
The people lived in exile for some 210 years in Egypt under the reigns of various Pharaonic dynasties, with a tradition of a singular patriarchal family history Abraham – Isaac and Jacob – passed down orally through the structure and memory of the clans.

Orality is a powerful and effective mechanism to transmit knowledge over the generations as long as there is a structure in place – a locus-or a generative group of teachers, priests and elders, male and female who exist in an unbroken chain transmitting the inherited heritage, knowledge and understanding from one generation to the next.

Once disrupted through war, famine, disease and assimilation, the oral knowledge is lost or at the very least diluted.

In the Mekhilta – the rabbinic midrash to Exodus along with the Exodus Rabbah, there are a numerous passages referring to the unworthiness of the people for redemption … complaining that they were idolators, or that they simple lacked “merit”.

16^th century commentator says Eliyahu Levita, concludes that the people retained their Names, dress, and language.

But the earlier rabbinic texts most often reference the book of Ezekial, 20:8

“They rebelled against Me and did not want to obey Me.  None of them threw away the detestable things they saw, and they did not abandon the idols of Egypt.

And other commentators note that the people were no longer living separately in Goshen but amidst the Egyptians

(I recommend reading the whole chapter of Ezekial 20 for a different picture of the people than we get from the Exodus story.)

We have no information as to what the children of Israel

(sic Jacob) believed and practiced throughout the period of the exile.

When the angel calls out to Moses at the burning bush he says…

 I am the God (elohai) of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 3:6,

and then when Moshe asks …. What is your name? what shall I say unto them?”   3:

I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.  3:14

The LORD (yhvh) God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt: 3:15

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them. (6:2-3)

I am the LORD (yhvh) and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 6: 7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God.

Hearing this one might ask to whom the people might have directed their prayers during these two hundred and ten years of exile….

Did they offer sacrifices in Egypt and to whom?

What did it mean to be told you were from the family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?

We know the ultimate purpose of the ten plagues and witnessing the death of the Egyptian army at the red sea was to convince the people that there is a God of Israel who would protect them and wanted them to be his people.

With the public empirical revelation on mount Sinai – the people perceived God’s presence – and received an oral teaching –

(This event distinguishes us from the other two major Western religions in that the text recounts that “we, all the people” experienced a public empirical revelation, whereas Jesus revealed himself to his disciples, and Mohammed had his revelation alone in the desert.)

At the beginning of Pirke Avot and then expanded on by the Rambam, in his introduction to the Mishna Torah …after the revelation … Moses came down the mountain and dictated the text to Joshua who transmitted it to the elders and that they went into the camp and every individual was instructed in the laws and even wrote their own text … that being the text of the ten statements …

We remember from the yearly cycle of Haftaroth – that after Joshua leads the people across the Jordan – they eventually settle in the land –

(I recommend that you read Joshua chapter 24 for a recapitulation of the Exodus and the nature of the people as they cross the Jordan river.)

The tent of meeting, (the mishkan) was set up first in Gilgal and then moved to Shiloh where it remained for centuries – the story that will most bring this to mind is when Hannah comes to the tent and prayed for a child and Eli the priest thought she was drunk .. only to then bless her and she gives birth to Samuel.

Even though the tent and the priestly line of Aaron were in Shiloh the land was filled with local alters on high places (mountain tops) … and the people did not necessarily pray to “the one god” nor do we have any record of their daily practice.

At Solomon’s dedication of the Temple the cloud descended so that no one could stay inside – demonstrating God’s existence and approval of the sanctuary, it is also noted in the book of Kings that, “There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt. 1 Kings 8-9

How did the people express their relationship to God through actions?

We might like to assume that they participated in thrice yearly pilgrimages, but this would be a misnomer…

Within one generation after the lands conquered by David -greater Israel- and presided over by Solomon, the kingdom was divided, the north comprised of (10 tribes) built cultic centers at Beth El and Dan, and worshiped the golden calf in the sanctuaries, and in the South (2 tribes, Judah and Benjamin) the people were not necessarily dedicated to the worship of the Yahweh – the most high.

The Northern life is illustrated in the Elijah story we read each year of his pouring water on his wooden pyre and after the priests of Baal fail to start their fire, God ignites Elijah’s and impassioned, he kills all of the other “false” priests of Baal.

Within100 years the Assyrian’s conquered the northern kingdom and resettle the tribes into the eastern portions of their empire, where they were lost to history, (a pseudonym for assimilation.)

In Judea after the destruction of Northern kingdom the Solomonic temple in Jerusalem had Asherah, holy trees growing inside its courts, along with other foreign cultic objects – temple prostitutes (whatever this may mean) and under Manasseh even Moloch worship.

Some 300 years after Solomon, during a renovation of the Temple the high priest brings a scroll to the king, Josiah. This is the first mention we have of an extended text of the law.

(It is worth reading the account in Kings 22-23 of just how comprehensive the Josiane reforms were.)

But for my narrative the following is the most important part

The King issued a command to all the people: “Observe the Passover of the Lord, your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant…No Passover such as this had been observed during the period when the judges, judged Israel, or during the entire period of the kings of Israel or the kings of Judah.”

It is also not without some profound reflection that we recognize that Josiah’s sons immediately reverted to the practices of their forefathers and did not maintain the reforms institutionalized by their father …

(Shortly after this Jeremiah tells us of the complete fall from grace and we learn of the destruction of the temple and the beginning of the Babylonian exile— he went to Egypt and not with the others to Babylon)

(60 years after the destruction of the first temple and exile, Cyrus granted a portion of the community the right to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple re- establish their hegemony and worship.)

Ezra returned from Babylon 100 years after the destruction with a scroll – a written text that present day scholars argue — contained no less than the book of Deuteronomy with the historical accounts found in Judges, Kings, and Chronicles ….

We read in Ezra & Nehemiah that upon their arrival they moved to dissolved mixed marriages, effectively separating the priestly and royal families who first returned from Babylon, 40 years before them, from the people who had remained in the land including the Samaritans, among others and from their cultic practices.

Ezra did a revolutionary thing — he read aloud from the scroll the law … from dawn until midday.

Nehemiah tells us that when the people heard about Sukkot they had no memory of it … and that when celebrated it was the first time since the time of Joshua.

So from the beginning of the settlement of the land with Joshua, until the 5^th century some 800+/- years, no Passover or Succoth celebrations …. let alone mention of Shavout or the High holidays. The prophets do speak about Shabbat and its lack of observance.

From this brief if not overly long recitation, we can conclude that the people of Israel – the Hebrews, the Jewish people – existed for more than 1000 years on the basis of clan structures, oral traditions, sacrificial acts, personal prayer and later with a priestly class and a monarchy that received tithes i.e. collected taxes from the people.

Our religion would face two more catastrophic events during the second temple period. The first being Persian control where the temple is desecrated, the Torah burned, the religion outlawed -kashrut, shabbat- leading to the Maccabean revolt, and then 200 years later the Roman destruction of the 2^nd temple which revolutionized Judaism.

In retrospect it is clear that both of these larger events would have led to the end of our story had not there developed “practice” – communal actions that sustained the people on a daily, weekly and yearly basis, affectively building a community that could survive in the face of loss, destruction and exile.

The legalistic Judaism that we know today, or what we might have been taught as a historical constant, is of course all post- destruction, post Mishnaic and primarily evolved in the world of the diaspora where Jews strove to co-exist within their host countries and religious groups.

The evolution of the oral law – Mishna, Talmud, Halacha, anchored in the Torah, transmitted orally, written in manuscript and then with the advent of printing disseminated Rabbinic teachings and authority has allowed us to live for some 2000 years in the diaspora without disappearing.

We who are living as Jews today in America with all the pressures of modernity, with devolving practice, assimilation, and intermarriage –and now with even the existence of the State of Israel questioned– on large feel threatened, and often at wits end on how to help perpetuate our faith, our people and our ideals.

That our forebearers did not disappear in antiquity like so many other nations is something miraculous. That our religion has continued to evolve, and even with the internal struggles over the meaning of Torah M’Sinai, who is a Jew, egalitarianism, and inclusiveness, I believe that the prophetic beliefs that we should strive to be an Or l’goyim  “a light unto the nations”, and Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof, together with the combination of the Mitzvah Bein Adam l’Chavero, and Bein Adam l’Makom, has continued to animate and distinguish us from the other Western faiths. (You may feel free to argue this with me.)

May we be blessed that the future generations will find solace, community and strength in the continued practice of our faith and teachings.

In closing I would like to recite the Shema.

Shema Yisroel Adonai Eloheynu Adonai Echad

 

Vayeshev

By Joel Stern, December 9, 2023

I’d like to dedicate this D’var Torah to the memory of David Ellenson, zichrono livracha, who passed away this week. David and his family were longtime members of this Minyan, and he was not only a wonderful friend to my family and to many others here, but a brilliant scholar of Judaism. He accomplished many things in his career, and he had a heart of gold. He will be deeply missed.

---

This week we began the story of Joseph. Joseph is one of the most fully developed characters in the Bible, and has always fascinated me. I practice origami, the art of paperfolding.

Looking at a mask model I created years ago, I recognized certain characteristics of Joseph. I saw his stoic nature reflected in the straight, grid-like folds. And though he looks down with a certain haughtiness, his eyes also exhibit a kind of world-weariness. He is mostly silent, and only speaks when necessary.

One of the interesting aspects of origami is the fact that once you fold a model, the creases remain forever. And when you unfold the model, you can see the crease pattern.

In fact, some people who study origami crease patterns can figure out the model it folds into.

When I thought about origami crease patterns and their resulting shape, I saw a connection to the Joseph story. When Joseph says to his brothers, “It was to save life that God sent me ahead of you,” he is identifying a pattern, or blueprint, for his life, albeit one defined by God.

But life patterns aren’t just shaped by events, they’re also shaped by the traits given to us at birth. The crease pattern I showed you represented all of the traits Joseph was born with — his sizable ego, his deep intelligence, his insight into dreams. Throughout his life, Joseph suffered greatly, losing — and gaining — over and over again. And each event contributed to the man he was by the time he revealed himself to his brothers — a man whose face reflected not only his innate qualities, but each and every harrowing and triumphant event of his life.

Question – Do patterns imply predetermination? Is there a connection between them? If we find ourselves following a pattern, isn’t that admitting that we’re not in control? And if we’re not in control, then we go where our patterns of behavior force us to go. And if so, isn’t that predetermination?

In 1965, Paul Simon declared in his song “Patterns”:

From the moment of my birth
To the instant of my death
There are patterns I must follow
Just as I must breathe each breath

Like the color of my skin
Or the day that I grow old
My life is made of patterns
That can scarcely be controlled

Despite his fatalistic point of view in this song, Paul Simon’s later career certainly doesn’t exemplify someone who is stuck in repeating patterns.

Patterns… and predetermination…

Over the centuries, some rabbis interpreted events in the Bible as a blueprint for the Jewish people. The Ramban states in his commentary to Genesis 12:6:

I will tell you a principle by which you will understand all the coming portions of Scripture concerning our forefathers. Ma’ase la’avot siman l’banim… “Whatever has happened to the patriarchs is a sign to the children.”

In other words, Jewish history is cyclical. What happened to our ancestors is repeated over and over again, in different ways, with succeeding generations of the Jewish people. I’m sure that we can all think of examples of this dynamic, especially, and tragically, from the past few months. So… one part of our tradition certainly does see a connection between patterns and predetermination.

Yet, another part of our tradition disagrees, at least in part, with this notion. As Rabbi Akiba says in Pirke Avot 3:15: Hakol tsafui, v’har’shut n’tunah. “All is foreseen, yet freedom is granted.”

This debate continues today. A book that has received considerable publicity, just in the last few months, is Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, written by Robert Sapolsky, a neuroendocrinology researcher. Sapolsky argues that there is no free will, or at least that there is much less free will than generally assumed. He claims that human actions are determined by neurobiology, hormones, childhood, and life circumstances. He therefore excuses “criminal” acts by positing that an individual could not have done anything differently at any given moment in time, due to genetics and life events.

This is an extremely dangerous point of view. If we look at events through the lens of “this is the only possible outcome,” then individuals are absolved of any responsibility, or accountability, for their actions.

Yet, sometimes it does seem that our lives are on an immutable path, and that we are stuck in unproductive or destructive patterns from which we can’t break free. Nevertheless, we must realize that nothing is inevitable. We must reject the view that our lives are predetermined. We can change our patterns of behavior.

Sometimes it takes a crisis to disrupt a behavior pattern. Remember Joseph? Throughout the story he displays a stony presence, until finally, no longer able to maintain his façade, he breaks down in tears, and embraces his estranged brothers.

Today, we pray that the terrible crisis for our people in Israel and around the world, and for all those suffering, will result in changing patterns of behavior — at a profound, seismic level — when hatred and prejudice will transform into acceptance and tolerance. This is the Chanukah miracle that we so desperately need today.

Bayamim hahem baz’man hazeh.

May the miracles that occurred in days of old occur again in our day.

Shabbat Shalom!

Toldot

By Paul Verger, November 17, 2023

Long ago, when the forest animals saw the hunters encroaching on their habitat, they knew that they had to find a new home. The question was where, how to get there, and above all who would lead them.

They first turned to the fox. The fox was a very suave and handsome animal, very friendly to all and always cool and amusing. He had great self confidence but he actually didn’t know much about the forest beyond his immediate vicinity. He soon led them to impassible rivers, stinging nettles, and several dangerous quicksands.

In desperation they turned to the beaver. The beaver was not charismatic. He had a flat ugly tail and buckteeth. But in long years of building dams, the beaver knew his way around the forest far and wide and how to traverse its dangers. And although he was quiet, the beaver also understood how the other animals would react, and he soon led them to a green and hospitable part of the forest that the hunters could not reach.

Today’s parsha also presents us with two potential leaders, twin brothers Jacob and Esau, the sons of Isaac. Jacob is considered the ancestor of our people; he received the name of Israel. Esau also became a great nation, but not ours.

Over the centuries, in considering which brother became our progenitor and leader, many people have asked, “Why Jacob?”.

As a boy and a young man, Jacob would not have been your favorite cousin. He was so hyper-competitive that he grasped his brother’s heel in an attempt to be born first. He spent his days studying and was not an adventurer. He casually bargained his brother, the firstborn, out of his birthright. Later he stole his brother’s blessing through trickery, then left town in a hurry in fear of his brother’s righteous wrath.

On the other hand, Esau has a lot to appeal to our sensibilities. He was a man of the fields and the outdoors. He lived in the moment. He was affectionate toward his parents. He always brought his father the best game from his hunt, cooked to Isaac’s taste. When his mother expressed her disgust at his Canaanite wives, he married a nice Aramaean girl to please her. When his brother stole his blessing, he was justifiably angered and expressed an intention to kill him after their parents were gone. But 34 years later when he finally got his chance, he unconditionally forgave him, kissed him, and said they should walk together as brothers.

So the question remains, “Why Jacob?”

The rabbis have noted that the Torah frequently favors the last-born son, but that does not seem to me to be sufficient reason for Jacob’s ascendance.

I believe that what sets Jacob apart is his vision of the future, his determination to do what was necessary to attain it, and his understanding of the actions needed at every step. He knows that he must work hard, take risks, and above all obey the will of Hashem.

Jacob is able to plan for the future and to see beyond the moment. According to Rashi, after he turned 13, Jacob spent his time in the study tents of Shem and Eber. He had a curious mind and knew that the knowledge would be necessary in the future. In the Hirsch translation of the parsha, the initial word applied to Jacob is “single-minded”.

On his journey Jacob has a dream of angels going up and down a stairway, and realizes that he is in a sacred place, which he did not know. He accepts the sign and immediately vows to create a house of God, because he is able to adapt to changing circumstances in pursuit of God’s will.

When Jacob reaches Haran, he sees Rachel and knows he wants her for his wife. Even though he is tired from his journey, he uses his great physical strength, given by Hashem, to move the stone from the top of the well so that Rachel and her compatriots can water their sheep. Isaiah notes that those who trust in Hashem will have their strength renewed.

When Jacob asks Rachel’s father Laban for her hand in marriage, Laban requires him to work 7 years. At the end of the 7 years, Laban deceives him by sending Leah instead, and requiring him to work another 7 years for Rachel. Jacob shows great determination to work the 14 years for the woman he loves, and refuses to give up even when he is deceived.

When Jacob finally returns to his native land, his top priority is the safety of his family. He knows that his first priority is to avoid the wrath of Esau. He sends generous gifts and obsequious words ahead to placate his brother. He also prepares for battle in case the gifts and overtures fail to appease Esau. He is ready to sacrifice his own life to protect his wives and children.

When Jacob manages to reconcile with his brother, Esau suggests that their peoples walk together in unity. But Jacob fears that quarrels will break out and makes excuses to remain separate. His priority is always the safety of his family and his future nation.

Later when his daughter is assaulted by the son of the chief of Shechem, Jacob does not raise the issue with the chief until his sons return, to avoid instigating a quarrel while his forces are divided. When his sons Simeon and Levi massacre the village without consulting him, he upbraids them not so much for their savagery but for their shortsightedness. He tells them that they have discredited the family by breaking their promise of peace, and that in doing so they have endangered the family by raising the possibility of the neighboring tribes uniting against them. Once again Jacob is giving top priority to the security and prosperity of his family and future nation. As the head of a small tribe with ambitions to conquer land and the need to deal with powerful nations, Jacob is completely focused on the situation his tribe faces.

There is a lesson here for modern times. In the Torah, the leaders of the Israelites are chosen by Hashem. Today in the advanced countries we choose our own leaders. In some ways Esau is like the fox in our story. He has many endearing qualities, but does not plan for the future or seek to understand alternatives. Jacob, on the other hand, resembles the beaver. He plans ahead, considers all factors, and knows how to lead his people. In choosing our leaders, it is important to choose men and women with wisdom, compassion and understanding of the available strategies and pitfalls of the current situation, rather than those who appeal only to our emotions.

Shabbat Shalom

Journey Into The Shema

By Bert Kleinman, July 29, 2023

It was a warm summer night in New York. The 12 year old Jewish kid was on his knees at the edge of his bed, his hands in a prayerful position. He knew very well he was Jewish, though he wasn’t quite sure what that meant. His grandparents were Jewish immigrants from the old country. His parents, though thoroughly secular, were culturally very Jewish, as were most of their friends, and all of his. He had no religious education, but desperately wanted to say something Jewish. So he recited 6 Hebrew words he knew… words that had come down to him through the ages. From the bottom of his heart the 12-year-old said: Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad. The boy wasn’t quite sure what the words meant, but he said them anyway.

My journey from that bedroom in my parent’s house almost 70 years ago, to this bimah today, has been a long and complicated one. It’s a journey that led me away from Judaism in my late teens, and then back at the age of 40. It’s a journey that took me deep into prayer and the Shema, a journey that continues today.

I have little formal Jewish education, and I’m certainly not a scholar. So I won’t pretend to be able to tell you what the Shema ‘means’. But I can claim expertise in my personal, private, prayer life. And today I’d like to share a bit of it with you, in the hope that my spiritual journey into 6 words from this week’s parsha, might inform your journey and prayer life.

My return to Judaism began when I realized our tradition is more about questions, than answers… more about seeking, than knowing… more about covenant and conversation, than about one way communication from God. Then I learned that the Hebrew word for prayer, Lhitpalel, is reflexive… that in some way, prayer is more about something we do to ourselves, than something we do to God… that it may be more important that we hear our prayers, than that God does. In the words of AJ Heschel, prayer is  “not about form, it’s about what happens inside us when we pray.” So for me, the Shema isn’t so much a statement, as a meditation, an opening of doors. And each day, each time I say the Shema, it’s a voyage… a spiritual adventure.

It started as I set out to try to understand the traditional take on the Shema… as a statement. I asked what do those 6 words mean as a sentence? Why have those words been so central to the Jewish people for thousands of years… on our lips morning and night, on the lips of Rabbi Akiva and so many Jews at their moment of martyrdom… the frontlets between our eyes, the words posted on the doorposts of our homes and on our gates.

The pshat seems pretty simple, but it’s not. Is the Shema saying there is only one God — the classic statement of monotheism? Or is it saying there are other Gods, but YHVH, the God of the Torah, is ours and Supreme? Is it about God? Or our relationship to God?

In trying to understand the Shema as a statement, I read it aloud in different ways. Each way leading to a different nuance of meaning.

שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה אֶחָֽד

שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה אֶחָֽד

שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה אֶחָֽד

שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יהֹוָ֥ה אֶחָֽד

שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה  אֶחָֽד

שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה  אֶחָֽד

Each of these readings leads me down a different road… to a different place for exploration.

Then there’s the experience of saying the Shema, and what meanings that experience brings. It’s customary to close the eyes to concentrate when reciting the Shema. But one day in prayer, I held my siddur up close to my face and I had a new experience. I heard my own voice reflected back to me from the page, merging with the voices of the many generations of Jews who wrote the siddur. So I started holding my siddur to my face as a practice. And then when praying with a minyan, I noticed that the voices of my prayer-mates merged with the voices coming from the siddur, and my own. I experienced a one-ness with my people, my history, my friends, myself… and since the words were originally dictated to Moses… a one-ness with God.

A couple of years ago, my journey took a different turn. I heard a podcast by Rabbi Brad Artson talking about his inner prayer life. He said that sometimes in prayer he feels like he’s an airplane taking off, soaring towards heaven. Other times he prays very slowly, meditating on every word. I had experienced soaring. But not the deep dive into each word… looking at each word as a hyperlink to other worlds of meaning… finding in each word further questions on which to reflect and meditate.

So I looked at each of the 6 words in the Shema… in order. And each word gave birth to a series of questions and opened new doors.

Shema. Lord Rabbi Jonathan Saks says the word is not really translatable. He wrote that it could mean listen, hear, reflect on, understand, internalize, respond in action or obey. To quote AJ Heschel again, “Jewish prayer is an act of listening. We do not bring forth our own words. The self is silent. The spirit of the people Israel speaks. In prayer we listen to what the words convey.” Was I listening? Did I hear? Did I engage and reflect? Was I responding to the words?

Yisrael. The pshat is both singular and plural. The listening isn’t just mine as an individual, but also as part of a people. What does it mean to be part of the people Israel? And what does it mean to listen as a Jew?  Yisrael is also the name given to Yaakov by God… a name which means one who wrestles with God. What am I wrestling with as I say these words? Do I need to win? Will I, like Yaakov, come away with a limp, and realize God was in this place and I didn’t notice? The deeper I dive into each word, the more questions and tentative answers emerge.

Adonai. Of course, that’s not what it says. The word is unpronounceable. Adonai is a vocalization of the tetragramaton YHVH. Adonai, Lord, is one of 70 traditional names of God in Hebrew. It’s one I’m not very comfortable with, both because of the anthropomorphic gender implication, and the King image. On the other hand, I am very comfortable with the traditional idea that Adonai represents God’s attributes of compassion, empathy, and mercy. The fact that Adonai is the first name of God in the Shema, speaks volumes to me about what God might be, and what I am listening to and worshiping. Beyond worship, this meaning of Adonai raises challenging personal questions: am I empathetic and compassionate with my family, my friends? With others with whom I may disagree? With myself? Huge challenges in a single word.

Eloheinu. The flip side of Adonai, Eloheinu reflects the traditional Godly attribute of strict justice. Should I hear Adonai OR Eloheinu? Mercy OR justice? Or should I hear Adonai AND Eloheinu? Mercy AND justice? How do I balance the two… with my family, friends, society and perhaps the hardest — with myself? Eloheinu is also in the possessive plural – OUR God not MY God. Who is the we? It’s a challenge to experience what it means to be Jewish. What “we” do I belong to? And normally, the word “our” means possession. What is it about God that I can or should possess?

Adonai… again. Usually in reciting the Shema, people pause before this word and end with Adonai Echad… implying that Echad refers just to Adonai. But what if I pause after the second Adonai and say Adonai Eloheinu Adonai together- kind of an Eloheinu sandwich — Justice surrounded by compassion on both sides?

Rabbi Artson has another take. He looks both Adonais through the lens of Process Theology. Rabbi Artson sees the first one as a reference to the moral potential of any action I might take. And he sees the second Adonai as the finality of each decision and action. What’s done is done. Questions abound: How do I make my choices? How do I deal with the implications and finality of my choices? In making my choices, am I taking a step towards God? Or away from God? Might God be a verb and not a noun?

Echad. If one looks at the word as following the Eloheinu sandwich, one could say it means the attributes of mercy and justice need to be united as one… two sides of the same coin. But that’s not the traditional take. In the Talmud the rabbis say Adonai Eloheinu, applies to the present, and Adonai Echad to the future. Jews are the ones who acknowledge God in the present, while in the future, the hope is that all humanity will. Rabbi Saks offers a number of other possible readings: There is only one God. God is a unity and indivisible. God is the only ultimate reality. God is one, despite seeming to be different things at different times in history. God alone is our King.

More questions… more ideas for exploration and reflection.

Hillel says in Pirke Avot 2:5: “Do not be sure of yourself until the day you die.”

So my journey continues each day… as I confront the 6 words, and try to hear them and engage with them. Some days, I soar on the words, letting their flow transport me towards Heaven. Other days I dive deep into one word or two… exploring their significance, our Jewish tradition, and what it all means to me. Each day is different.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav wrote “The world is full of the light of God, but to see it we must learn to open our eyes”. The Shema calls out for us to open our ears as well… to see the light, to hear the words… and sense the Presence and Potential of God in every moment… all around us.

Shabbat Shalom

Terumah

By Larry Herman, February 25, 2023 (5783)

Terumah Trauma

Shabbat Shalom.

I have a confession to make.

I suffer from a personality disorder.

It’s not all that debilitating. But it does cause me anxiety.

In truth, I’ll bet that many of you are also afflicted by it.

It’s called TTSD.

Never heard of it? I’ll spell it out. Terumah Trauma Stress Disorder.

Like most stress related disorders, the recommended treatment is to avoid the triggering events and environments. The problem is, that would pretty much mean not opening my mailbox or my email. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t get at least one physical solicitation and several emails asking me to contribute to a wide range of worthy causes. In just the past couple of weeks I’ve received letters and emails from:

• National Kidney Foundation
• Natan Relief
• PLeDGE
• PBS
• YimbiAction
• Wikipedia
• Schecter
• Center Theater
• Cedars Sinai
• Sierra Club
• City of Hope
• Friends of the IDF
• The Self Help Home
• The LA Phil
• Hirsch Mental Health Services
• Alzheimers LA
• HIAS
• Searchlight
• Children’s hospital (with a nickel)
• Midnight Mission
• LA Police Protective League
• Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
• Peace Now
• Kline Galland
• Jewish Free Loan
• New Israel Fund
• Wags & Walks
• Jewish Family Services

I open Sefaria and they ask for a donation even though I make automatic monthly contributions. I open Wikipedia and they want money even though I already give generously every year. Doesn’t matter. Their systems are designed for asking. In fact, the more you give the more they ask.

Give to most charitable organizations even once, however modestly and you’ve a pen pal for life.

And now there’s this thing called Giving Tuesday, which follows Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It is the self-described global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world. My description? It’s Shnor-zilla

And then there are the myriad other opportunities to contribute or at least be asked. I go shopping and they ask me if I want to make a contribution. On the way to shop there are several hands stretched out awaiting my generosity. Take a flight and I’m asked to donate my spare change. Turn on the television and someone is pitching me for a heart rendering cause.

[Pause] And I haven’t mentioned TBA. Annually there are dues, the facility fee, the security fee, and the building assessment. And you can add on sisterhood, Masorti, names for the memorial book. If you want to make a donation as a memorial or honorary gift there are 36 possible designations. Not to mention numerous special giving opportunities through the year.

It can be traumatizing. Am I giving enough? Which causes are most worthy of more and which are worthy of anything? Should I give a little to them all or concentrate my giving on just a few? What about this idea of effective altruism?

I want to do the right thing. I’m sure that many of you also wrestle with this question.

I thought that this week’s parsha might help. It’s the first time the term תרומה is used. It appears just three times in the second and third verses.

²  Speak to the Israelites, that they take Me a donation from every man, as his heart may urge him you shall take My donation.

³  And this is the donation that you shall take from them;

I took my translation from Robert Alter who translates תרומה as donation. But the JPS uses gifts. Aryeh Kaplan uses the word offering. Everett Fox uses the awkward term raised contribution the first time it’s used and then shortens it to contribution afterwards. Some other translations use tithe, voluntary gift, heave offering. The Art Scroll’s Stone Ḥumash has the most perplexing translation of all, portion. Not very helpful.

I know, or at least I think that I know what תרומה means in modern Hebrew. It’s a donation. In Israel it’s what the person who comes to your door asking you to give 20 shekels wants you to give. They even have a receipt with the word תרומה printed on it. It’s charity. צדקה. Or is it?

Terumah in the context of our parsha specifically refers to the voluntary contributions made by members of the entire community to support the construction of the Mishkan. A building fund.

From its shorash Terumah means something that is raised up or taken to a higher level. This giving helps to lift us up. Or as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes, “giving confers dignity”. Terumah should be for a sacred or at least uplifting purpose. And it must be voluntary. Does that mean that our synagogue dues should be voluntary?

But Terumah is not exactly charity or Tzedakah. We confuse the words Terumah and Tzedakah. We think of each as a form of charity, perhaps as payments that are tax deductible, if you can actually take a tax deduction.

But they are not really the same at all.

As one should do when struggling with questions like this I went Rabbi Elliot Dorff and he both helped and complicated my problem. He reminded me that Tzedakah comes from the word meaning justice, implying that caring for the poor is not an unusually good act, but rather simply what is expected of you.

Donating to the poor and to other social needs is not a [voluntary] act of especially generous people, but an expected act of each and every Jew. [Elliot Dorf as quoted by Mark Greenspan]

In other words, Tzedakah, unlike Terumah, is not voluntary. As Rabbi Mark Wildes puts it:

If we contribute to those who are less fortunate only when we feel like it, what happens when we’re not feeling like it? [Rabbi Mark Wildes, https://www.jta.org/2016/02/16/ny/religious-obligations-mandatory-or-voluntary]

So I have been confusing Terumah with Tzedakah. Terumot are voluntary acts of giving that benefit a sacred purpose of the community. Tzedakah are obligatory acts of justice. The act is obligatory; the beneficiary and amounts can be discretionary.

Rabbi Dorff encourages us to make our own lists of why we should give Tzedakah, to whom and how we should allocate our Tzedakah spending.

And I’m thinking that my list ought to include both Tzedakah and Terumah.

So with the proviso that this is a personal list and a work in progress, I will share with you my own rules for giving, version 1.0.

1. Distinguish between Terumah and Tzedakah. Tzedakah helps the poor and needy. Terumah includes shul dues (in all their various forms). And perhaps there should also be a category of secular Terumah includes support for the arts, educational institutions, medical research, etc. I think that Tzedakah should be at least as large as Terumah.
2. Giving close to home is important – but so is helping others who are distant. Look for a balance.
3. Try to maximize the effectiveness of your giving, but don’t sweat it.
4. If your friends are committed to something it’s probably worth helping them. A three-way win.
5. Giving shouldn’t just be monetary. For most of us, giving money is easy; giving time, caring and compassion is harder but important.
6. Forget about taxes; give as if taxes don’t matter (then deal with your taxes as if giving doesn’t matter). Helping friends and family members in need may not be tax deductible but it is surely Tzedakah.
7. Throw away and delete all solicitations. Make the effort to examine and select the causes you want to give to. [Take out those nickels!]
8. Make giving a habit, an everyday habit. Easy if one is a daily davener.

That’s a start. I’ll let  you know if it helps with the trauma.

Parashat Bo

By Jim Rogozen, Jan 28, 2023

Words have power: they can enlighten; they can mislead. They can sustain old beliefs; they can also create new perceptions.

A verse in today’s parsha launched a thousand commentaries, two law-suits, a slew of anti-Semitic comments, and created a holiday for women.

At the burning bush, God gives Moshe a preview of coming attractions. He said, “I see your suffering, but know that I will take you out of Egypt. I will cause the Egyptians to see you favorably; you will not go out empty handed. People will borrow things from their neighbors and empty out Egypt.”

In our parsha, in Exodus 11:2 Moshe tells the people what had been predicted earlier and instructs them:

ְיִשְׁאֲל֞וּ אִ֣ישׁ | מֵאֵ֣ת רֵעֵ֗הוּ וְאִשָּׁה֙ מֵאֵ֣ת רְעוּתָ֔הּ כְּלֵי־כֶ֖סֶף וּכְלֵ֥י זָהָֽב

“Everyone should borrow, each man from his friend and each woman from her friend, silver vessels and golden vessels.”

The Israelites do that, and when it was time to leave…

וַֽיהֹוָ֞ה נָתַ֨ן אֶת־חֵ֥ן הָעָ֛ם בְּעֵינֵ֥י מִצְרַ֖יִם וַיַּשְׁאִל֑וּם וַיְנַצְּל֖וּ אֶת־מִצְרָֽיִם

The Lord gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, and they borrowed from them, and they emptied out Egypt.

The verb שאל is tricky. It can mean to ask or to borrow.

The problem, though, isn’t really the word, but the intention. You see, Moshe misled Pharoah, telling him that his people were going out to the wilderness for a short holiday. Did the Israelites know it was for longer? If so, their request to borrow items was also misleading.

And if the Egyptians knew, then why would they happily hand over their valuable possessions?

Maybe it was because of what God predicted:

וַֽיהֹוָ֞ה נָתַ֨ן אֶת־חֵ֥ן הָעָ֛ם בְּעֵינֵ֥י מִצְרַ֖יִם

The Lord gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians.

Did God exert some kind of mind control over them? Did God help them see the people in a different light?

Another question to answer is why God wanted the Israelites to take all this stuff.

The two most common explanations for gathering these objects are:

#1: this was compensation or reparations for the work the Israelites did.

This reason is backed up in Dvarim 15:13 which tells us what is owed to a slave who is set free:

^{דברים טו:יג} וְכִי תְשַׁלְּחֶנּוּ חָפְשִׁי מֵעִמָּךְ לֹא תְשַׁלְּחֶנּוּ רֵיקָם.

^{Deut 15:13} When you set him free, do not let him go empty-handed: ^15:14 Bear in mind that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you.

Reason #2: this was all part of a divine plan, way back in Genesis 15:14, when God explained to Avram that his descendants would be many, but at some point they would be enslaved. However …

וְגַם אֶת הַגּוֹי אֲשֶׁר יַעֲבֹדוּ דָּן אָנֹכִי וְאַחֲרֵי כֵן יֵצְאוּ בִּרְכֻשׁ גָּדוֹל.

^{Gen 15:14} But I [God] will execute judgment on the nation they [Israel] shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth.

So asking/borrowing, even deceiving Pharoah and the Egyptian citizens? This was all part of a larger plan.

These two rationales – wages owed and divine plan- however, didn’t sit well with everyone.

In the commentary to Megillat Taanit we learn that in the time of Alexander the Great, Egyptians brought a lawsuit against the Jews, claiming they owed them for all the things they stole during the Exodus. The Jewish community was defended by a sage named Gevihah ben Pesisa, who argued the opposite:

“For 430 years, 600,000 Israelites were enslaved by you. You need to give each one of them 200 zuz per year [of service], which amounts to 860,000,000 zuz per person. Then we will give you back your property.”

And in 2003, Nabil Hilmi, dean of the law school at Egypt’s University of Al-Zaqaziq, prepared a lawsuit against “all the Jews of the world,” claiming the Israelites stole more than 1,000 trillion tons of gold during the Exodus. Hilmi, trying to be fair, said he was willing to amortize this debt over a millennium, so long as cumulative interest was calculated and paid.

Not in a trial, but in her commentary, Nechama Leibowitz countered by suggesting that there is no unfairness here because the Israelites most likely left property behind in Egypt, something that certainly happened in later expulsions.

So, the meaning or intention or ethical nature of שאל – taking possession of Egyptian stuff – has been, and will continue to be, seen from different perspectives.

Which leaves us to deal with this phrase: וַיְנַצְּל֖וּ אֶת־מִצְרָֽיִם

The Israelites emptied out or despoiled Egypt.

וַיְנַצְּל֖ו is from the verb נצל.

It’s tempting to think of it in its modern meaning: to take advantage. Or in the way this particular verse is most often translated – to empty out – but I’d like to introduce you to a very different understanding…

For that we jump to Exodus 32, the story of the Golden Calf.

 וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֲלֵהֶם֙ אַֽהֲרֹ֔ן פָּֽרְקוּ֙ נִזְמֵ֣י הַזָּהָ֔ב אֲשֶׁר֙ בְּאָזְנֵ֣י נְשֵׁיכֶ֔ם בְּנֵיכֶ֖ם וּבְנֹֽתֵיכֶ֑ם וְהָבִ֖יאוּ אֵלָֽי:

Aaron said to them, “Remove the golden earrings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them [those earrings] to me.” (32:2).

According to Tradition, the women refused to donate their jewelry to make this idol. Why?

In Pirkei D’Rabi Eliezer 45:4 we read:

ולא קבלו עליהם ליתן נזמיהן לבעליהן אלא אמרו להם אתם רוצים לעשות שקוץ ותועבה שאין בו כח להציל

לא שמעו להם

“You want to make this abomination, this detestable thing that has no power to save you?! No way, no how!

Notice the Hebrew word in this quote – להציל – to save.

להציל – is the הפעיל form of the shoresh (or root letters) נצל which gives us the word וַיְנַצְּל֖ו

Some form of the root נצל appears 212 times in the Bible. In 210 cases it means to save. The other 2 cases are when the verb is in the pee’ayl form, which occurs 17 of those 212 times. In these two cases (Chronicles and Samuel) it does mean to take things, but these were cases when the soldiers redeemed the spoils of war that were taken from the Israelites, and in one of those cases it meant saving people as well as things.

So what about our verse in Shemot?

While almost all translations of  וַיְנַצְּל֖ו imply clearing out, as a negative action, it just doesn’t fit in with the dynamic and tone of “asking” or “borrowing”… especially given the good will of the Egyptians. Which is exactly, I believe, the backdrop to the Midrash about the women refusing to hand over their jewelry.

The women were not only rejecting the idolatry of the Golden Calf; they were also emphasizing that the jewelry they had collected in Egypt represented something very special: the good wishes of their Egyptians neighbors. Our Tradition backs that up with the Midrash that during the plague of darkness the Egyptians were helpless but no Israelite took advantage of them. Rabbi Shimshon Raphel Hirsch wrote that “the first foundation stone of the prosperity of God’s people was to be acquired through recognition of their moral greatness by those who had once despised them.” He even says the word וַיְנַצְּל֖וּ means that the Egyptians initiated the collection of their own treasures and gave them to the Israelites.

The women’s response was about acknowledging the redemptive nature of the Egyptians’ gifts, which led to a departure based on appreciation; not deception or resentment. It also ties in with the later commandment in Dvarim 23:8 not to hate the Egyptians.

So how did this amazing episode end up for the women?

Orach Chaim #417 Shulkhan Arukh

^אראש חודש מותר בעשיית מלאכה ^בוהנשי’ שנוהגות שלא לעשות בו מלאכה הוא מנהג טוב

It is permissible to work on Rosh Hodesh, but the custom is for women NOT to work…this is a good custom.

In the Magen Avraham commentary we read:

:לפי שלא פרקוּ נזמיהם לעגל ניתן להם ראש חוֹדש ליוֹם טוֹב

Because they didn’t turn over their nose rings (to make) the Golden Calf, Rosh Hodesh was given to them as a Yom Tov.

Not only that, but according to Pirke D’Rabbi Eliezer we read

נתן להן הקדוש ברוך הוא שכרן בעולם הזה
ונתן להן שכר לעולם הבא

…this reward continues in the world to come.

The prooftext? They (women) are destined to be renewed like the New Moons, as it is said, “He satisfies your years with good things; so that your youth is renewed like the eagle” (Ps. 103:5).

An updated view of history allows us to refresh the computer screens of the present. We can laugh at the ancient lawsuits, defend against negative interpretations of the story, and be reminded every Rosh Hodesh (if not every day) that women are so much wiser than men.

I’d like to suggest that there is even more we can do.

We can do more to ensure the rights and dignity of all women, throughout the world.

We can do more to recognize the well-meaning citizens who, living under oppressive rule, still helped Jews and others when they were being threatened.

We can do more to appreciate the rays of light in our society: good people, with good intentions, who are doing good things, even when surrounded by forces of darkness that aim to instill hate and fear.

Let’s remember that when we can recognize the humanity of others, and work together to connect and to heal, there will be a critical mass of people who have the  כח להציל  …the power to save, restore, and preserve humanity and the world.

Keyn yehi ratzon.

Jim Rogozen

Heiche Kedusha

By Rabbi Jim Rogozen, January 14, 2023

Good Shabbos.

You know that joke about the woman who calls her husband in a panic? She says “Dear, be careful. There’s a crazy guy on the freeway driving in the wrong direction!” He responds, “It’s not one guy. Everybody is driving in the wrong direction!”

Which leads me to the subject of how one does a heiche kedusha , which is what we call it when we shorten the time it takes to recite the Amida by eliminating the hazara, or Reader’s repetition.

Rabbi David Golinkin identified 7 different ways of doing this, but the two most popular ones are the…

• The Sephardi Method: We all begin the Amidah out loud together, we do the kedusha out loud, then we finish the Amida
• Then there’s the Ashkenazi Method: Only the shaliach tzibur starts out loud, then we, the kahal join in with the shaliach tzibur for Kedusha, then we, the kahal, start over from the very beginning of the Amida and we do the whole thing silently.

Over the centuries, the heiche kedusha was seen as a compromise, something that was only used when a group of people were running out of time (usually at weekday Minha). It’s interesting to note that people who would never consider doing a heiche kedusha on Shabbat started to do so during the worst of COVID as a way to limit exposure during outdoor minyanim.

Over time the heiche kedusha was put into play for one or both of the following reasons: One, because people thought davening was too long. Two, because the full repetition of the Amida, instituted to help non-readers fulfill their Amida requirement, was no longer necessary. The naysayers rejected both reasons, adding that using a heiche kedusha to shorten prayer made as much sense as asking Rabbis to do a heicha drash. Well, maybe that’s ok.

There are additional downsides to doing a heiche kedusha:

1. People who don’t regularly hear most of the Amidah repeated won’t develop davenning fluency and accuracy
2. People won’t hear Birkat Kohanim
3. My reason: It reduces the opportunities for singing

So, we have the two basic, consensus methods: Sephardi and Ashkenazi. However, there is a general consensus that for Shacharit, it’s better to use the Sephardi method (everyone starts together, out loud), because of an opinion in the Talmud, Brakhot 4b that says

“איזהו בן העולם הבא? זה הסומך גאולה לתפילה”.

“Who is worthy of the world to come? She or he who links geula (redemption) to t’filla (another name for the Amida).”

How does that work? The siddur connects the reference to geula – redemption, leaving Egypt– found in the 3^rd paragraph of the Shema, through a variety of verses, ending with the bracha (“baruch ata…ga’al Yisrael” – God redeemed Israel) that is right before the Amida. This connection led to the custom of lowering our voice at that bracha, and then going right into the Amida. That’s why if we do a heiche kedusha in Shacharit, everyone would need to begin the Amida together, Ashkenazi style.

When the Law Committee took up this issue in 2017 Rabbi Jeremy Kalmonofsky added a further complication. The Amida, when done with a hazara, includes both private and public prayer components. Rabbi Kalmonofsky questioned the status of the Hazan’s Amida in the Ashkenazic method.

If the Hazan is the only one who chants the first part of the Amida out loud, is that a t’filla yachid, an individual Amidah? What about the part he or she recites silently after the communal kedusha when others are praying the same thing? Is that now a public Amida? More to the point, if congregants start the Amida over from the beginning, does that retroactively make the Hazan’s initial individual prayer a Tfilla b’tzibur – a public prayer? The Sephardic method, he says, seems to be the best of both worlds, as it is clearly a T’filla B’tzibur.

Bottom line: while it’s preferable for a minyan to do a full hazarat ha’shatz, the RA opinion was to use Sefardi style, where everyone starts together, so it’s truly T’filla b’tzibur (public prayer) for everyone. 15 voted in favor, 4 abstained. One of those who abstained was our own Rabbi Gail Laibovitz, who felt that this issue fell into the category of minhag (custom) and didn’t need to be a settled legal issue.

I agree. I’m not advocating for a unified approach or a policy here in the minyan because it’s one of life’s great pleasures to look around and think: You do it your way, and I’ll do it the correct way.

Shabbat Shalom

 

Vayechi, Jan 1, 2023

By Rachel Rubin Green

Today I want to talk about the Amida prayer and the notion of Shabbat as a taste of the Messianic era.

I want to thank my Hevruta, Bert Kleinman, for his inspiration in developing my ideas about the Amidah. Bert’s comments have helped me focus my thinking.

The Amidah is the core of every prayer service – recited three times on weekdays, four times on Shabbat and Yom Tov, and five times on Yom Kippur. In our practice of Rabbinic Judaism, the Amidah replaced the sacrifices that were once offered at the Temple. Even though the other term for the weekday Amidah is the Shmoneh Esraey, the 18, it actually contains 19 blessings – 3 introductory, 3 concluding, and 13 petitionary prayers in the middle. On Shabbat and Yom Tov, those middle prayers are replaced by the blessing of the day.

The 3 introductory blessings are blessings of praise. For those of us who daven mostly on Shabbat and Yom Tov, these are the most familiar parts of the Amidah because we sing them aloud together both at Shacharit and at Musaf. The 3 concluding blessings, blessings of gratitude, are sung together only when we have a full repetition, usually at Shacharit, but rarely at Musaf, so some of us don’t know them as well. These blessings include the Modim prayer of thanksgiving and a prayer for peace. While the words themselves vary slightly from one service to another, these two groups of blessings remain the same thematically and are found in the same sequence every time the Amidah is recited.

Lord Jonathan Sacks groups the middle blessings thematically. The first three are for individual spiritual needs – Knowledge, repentance, forgiveness. Furthermore, knowledge of what is righteous behavior will lead one to repent, which in turn leads one to ask for forgiveness. According to Rabbi Sacks, these are the first 3 needs of an individual soul.

The next 3 brachot address the physical needs of an individual – redemption, Geula, from personal crises, healing, and prosperity – the blessing of the years. At the time these blessings were codified, blessing God for the passage of the seasons was indeed a blessing for prosperity, since all lives at that time depended upon agricultural abundance. That is still more true than many of us would like to think. Nevertheless, I personally like the idea of blessing God for the simple passage of time.

With the next bracha, the ingathering of the exiles, the requests in the blessings shift from individual spiritual and physical needs to communal physical and then spiritual needs. Gathering in the exiles, restoring judges, destroying enemies and humbling the arrogant are all aspects of a communal desire for physical restoration of a Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. The third of these blessings, about destroying enemies, is a reference to the destruction brought about by factionalism in the Jewish community during Greek and Roman times. It is an uncomfortable sentence, and perhaps can serve as a warning.

The last group of three addresses our communal spiritual needs. The first is a blessing praising the righteous and the scholars in Israel, who provide spiritual resources for the community. Then are two blessings praising God for rebuilding Jerusalem and for the salvation of the line of David, a not very subtle reference to a Messiah. These 3 together make up the last cluster of petitionary blessings.

The last blessing that we say on weekdays but not on Shabbat is Shema Kolenu – hear our voices. We pray that God will continue to hear us, and hopefully, or maybe, respond to what we ask. Rabbi Sacks adds that this is where in the liturgy individual prayers should be added

The middle blessings that I summarized together give us a path towards a more redeemed world. Meeting personal spiritual needs first, then personal physical needs, then communal physical needs, and lastly communal spiritual needs gives direction to our actions. Even taking away the layer of national ideology that permeates so much of our liturgy, these blessings list elements of a redeemed, or at least an improved world. Everyone has access to health and to sustenance, there are systems of judges, implying that laws and justice are part of the society, and there is respect for scholars. Repentance and Forgiveness suggest that individuals take responsibility for their actions. All these would be steps towards an improved, although far from messianic, society.

The familiar explanation as to why these blessings are not said on Shabbat is that we don’t ask for things on Shabbat. By definition, these prayers are requests, and are therefore inappropriate for Shabbat.

Another possible explanation, one I have just started to consider, is that if Shabbat is a taste of the messianic time, an almost tangible preview of the world to come, we have no need to say those brachot on Shabbat. Those needs and desires have been met, so making those requests is no longer necessary.

Sadly, the real world intrudes. The unhoused people I saw walking to shul this morning are stark evidence that even on Shabbat we do not live in a messianic or redeemed world.

Prayer is to inspire the person saying the words, we, the Kahal, need to hear the words we say. The petitionary prayers in the middle section of the weekday Amidah are to list for us work that still needs to be done in the world. So enjoy Shabbat, and then tomorrow morning, get to work on however you can best contribute.

Shabbat Shalom

Toldot

By Joel Elkins, November 26, 2022

Emile Boirac was a French philosopher and one of the earliest supporters of Esperanto, who lived in the late 19th/early 20th century. He noticed that sometimes when he was in a place that he was sure he had never been to before, he would see a tree or building and swear that he had seen it before. He called this feeling déjà vu.

If you experienced that feeling today, you would not be alone.

After all, two weeks ago, in Parshat Vayerah, we learned that Sarah was having trouble getting pregnant, but eventually God gives her a child, Isaac. In today’s Parsha, Rifka is having difficulty conceiving but God hears Isaac’s prayers and gives her twins.

Back in Vayerah, we read about a conflict that developed between Avraham’s children, Isaac and Ishmael. Today, we read about a conflict between Isaac’s sons, Jacob and Esau.

Two weeks ago, Sarah favored Isaac over Ishmael and convinced Abraham to send Ishmael away so that Isaac can carry on Abraham’s legacy. In today’s parsha, Rivka favors Jacob and helps him get Esau’s birthright so that he could carry on Isaac’s legacy.

Back in Vayerah, Abraham finds himself in Gerar, a kingdom in the Negev, and tells people there that Sarah is his sister, because Sarah is very beautiful and he is afraid they might take her and kill him. When the King of Gerar finds out the truth, he says “why didn’t you tell me?” and bestows upon Abraham sheep and cattle and land, and Abraham prospers as a result. In today’s parsha, Isaac also ends up going to the exact same Gerar, also calls his wife his sister, also because she is beautiful and that he is afraid they might take her and kill him. And when the King of Gerar finds out the truth, he says “why didn’t you tell me?” and gives Isaac free reign of the land and as a result Isaac also flourishes.

So if you’re having a “where have I heard this before?” feeling, it’s perfectly understandable.

Now, there are many theories about what causes déjà vu. Sigmund Freud attributed it to, what else, repressed desires. Because the desire is repressed, it is blocked from our consciousness, but, according to Freud, a sense of familiarity leaks through to our conscious mind and results in the déjà vu experience.

Carl Jung, alternatively, suggested we experience déjà vu when we tap into the collective unconscious.

Some modern day scientists believe that it may be due to a short circuit in our brain which mixes up long-term and short-term memory so that new incoming information goes straight to long term memory instead of making a pitstop in the short term memory bank. Other scientists believe that it’s due to a false triggering of the rhinal cortex—the part of the brain that signals that something feels familiar—even without the memories to back it up.

And, of course, it could just be a glitch in the matrix.

So, what’s going on here? Why is Parshat Toldot so eerily similar to Parshat Vayera that we read two weeks ago? Is it simply lazy storytelling? They ran out of story ideas? It worked so well in the original; why not use it again in the sequel?

Or is there something we can learn from this?

Well, let’s take a closer look at the two versions of each of these stories. In the first pair of stories, Sarah desperately wants a child of her own. By the time three mysterious strangers come and tell her she is to give birth within the year, she is already an old woman. When Rivka, on the other hand, has trouble conceiving, Isaac intercedes on her behalf well before she reaches old age and so she gets pregnant sooner. Same predicament, but a different reaction. Avraham is passive in the face of his wife’s longing and as a result, she has to wait a very long time; Yitzchak actively advocates on his wife’s behalf, and gets a faster, more effective result.

In our second pair of stories, Sarah has an issue with Ishmael, and her solution is to send him away. When Rivka has a similar issue with Esau, she works behind the scenes to change the dynamic in order to get her favored son the birthright. True, not altogether scrupulous, but at least more humane than exiling him into the wilderness, and arguably just as effective.

In the two Gerar stories, both Abraham and Isaac both lie about their relationships, valuing their lives over their wives. But when caught in their lies, Isaac freely admits that he was simply scared for his life, whereas Abraham continues the ruse by claiming that Sarah was technically his half-sister. They end up with the same result, but Isaac at least salvages some honor by fessing up when the truth is revealed.

Isaac and Rebecca are the middle generation of patriarchs/matriarchs. And compared with the bookend generations, they don’t get nearly as much attention, either in terms of column inches or reputation. But perhaps they got a bad rap.

Granted, in each of these stories, they are far, far from perfect. After all, they show clear favoritism to one child over the other (Rivka to Jacob, Isaac to Esau), and Rivka even goes so far as to help her favored child cheat the other out of what is legitimately his. But, to her credit, she doesn’t send him out into the wilderness.

Then, Isaac lies about his marriage to Rivka for no other reason than to protect himself even though he knows it might put her in danger. But, when confronted he admits the truth.

Not great, but it does show small signs of improvement. So perhaps the defining trait of this second generation is “progress, not perfection.”

In life, we often find ourselves in difficult situations. For example, we or our loved ones are denied something we sincerely desire, say a child. We can sit idly by or try to do something about it.

Perhaps we are caught in a lie. We can continue to propagate the lie, or we can come clean, put our cards on the table, take responsibility for our dishonesty and let the chips fall where they may.

Perhaps we see a situation that we know in our hearts is sub-optimal or even unacceptable. For example, someone less qualified holds a position in place of someone we know to be better qualified. We can jump in and heavy-handedly upend the entire framework, or we can work within the system to achieve what we believe is the preferred outcome.

We are not defined by the situation we find ourselves in, but in how we react to that situation.

The parshah ends with perhaps the quintessential example of choosing to react differently to similar situations. Jacob, with the help of his mother, tricks his father into giving him the blessing of the firstborn, which leads to years of animosity and estrangement between him and his brother Esau. In Parshat Va-y’hi, which we will read in a few weeks, Jacob, by then an old man, crosses his arms so as to place his right hand on the head of Ephraim, even though he is the younger grandchild, and his left hand on the head of Menassheh, the elder. Despite this obvious slight, Ephraim and Menassheh choose not to let it sour their relationship. Tradition tells us that this is why to this day we bless our children to be like those children, not because of what they did, but because of how they reacted to the circumstances in which they found themselves.

Let us learn from Rivka and Yitzchak and aim just a little higher. When faced with similar situations, deciding to act differently, slightly more honestly, slightly more prudently, slightly more proactively, slightly more humanely.

Progress, not perfection.

Ken y’hi ratzon.

Adonai Ho Nachalatam:  El Maleh Rachamim

By Rabbi Susan Laemmle, Yom Kippur Yizkor, October 5, 2022

El Maleh Rachamim — in a few minutes, this beautiful Hebrew phrase, carried on its haunting traditional melody, will introduce a central prayer in the Yizkor service. Like the Hebrew, the English rendition — “God, full of compassion” — is soothing. Being soothed is most welcome, for losing someone we love bruises and diminishes us, rendering us less assured about ourselves and the world. Even remembering back to such a loss after a span of time can shake us to our core.

The three key components of the Yizkor Service are Mourner’s Kaddish, the particular Yizkor Prayers, and El Maleh Rachamim. Mourner’s Kaddish comes to reassure us that the God we struggle to understand is still there; things seem to be falling apart, but the Center holds. The particular Yizkor prayers are there to lift the deceased person’s name and memory aloft within the earthly world they no longer inhabit, like a Torah scroll lifted by the Hagbah. El Maleh Rachamim wraps the dead, and us, in an embrace that sweeps beyond time and space to hook onto Life’s enduring ground. Of course it matters whether our beloved person died last month — or one, five, twenty, fifty years ago.

And mourning those who perished in the Holocaust or within the Temple Beth Am community affects us less directly, less viscerally. But still, on Yom Kippur we recite Yizkor prayers and the Kaddish for all of them; and El Maleh widens its scope while retaining its intimacy.

Some years ago, I suddenly noticed that one sentence in this prayer comes directly from Torah. There this sentence specifies that the Levites’ priestly duties prevent their being allocated a tribal share in the Promised Land and so they are promised compensation that Numbers 18:20 formulates as ani chelkecha v’nachalatcha: “I am your portion and your share”; which appears in Deuteronomy 18:2 as Adonai hu nachalato: “Adonai is their (literally “his”) inheritance.” Commentary sticks close to the pshat, as in the 13^th century French commentator Hizkuni’s amplification of Targum Onkolos’s 2^nd century translation of the Torah into Aramaic, which reads: “the gifts I have given you are your share and your inheritance; thus you will need no other income and will be free to serve me.” It makes sense that the priests and Levites would receive Israelite tithes while also gaining a special relationship with Adonai.

But how did this decisive statement make its way from the original elite, narrowly focused Levitical context to the memorial prayer El Maleh Rachamim, where it applies to any Jew who dies?

The custom of praying for the dead’s repose goes back to the 6^th century, and martyrologies were formulated for victims of the Crusades. El Maleh Rachamim’s date of composition is not known, but it seems to have arrived at its prevailing form during the Cosack-led Khmelnytsky Massacres of 1648-54. There are different versions in various Ashkenazi European communities, and also El Maleh shares many phrases with the Sephardic Hashcavah or Ashkavta Prayer — including Adonai Ho Nachalto.

It is impossible to know who placed that particular Torah-anchored statement on nachalah near the conclusion of the prayer. But what we can know is how we feel upon being told that we will gain direct access to God even as we give up our animated physical presence on earth. And so too regarding the beloved person whose death removes them from the three-dimensionality of our lives and world. Just as the Levites are not dispossessed but instead possess differently so the dead person’s neshamah gains possession of God.

Back when that bold assertion in the El Maleh prayer jumped out at me, I felt immediately strengthened. At age 69, I was moving toward retirement, but in good health and full of possibilities. I was definitely aging but not yet old; aware of death but not yet like The Tempest’s Prosporo, who will “retire me to my Milan, where every third thought shall be my grave.” Several years earlier, the premature death of a younger study-partner colleague had shaken me toward focused thinking about mortality, which crystallized as something like this: The aspect of myself I most treasure is my inner life — the running discussion within my head and sense of being myself that reaches out to others and enjoys its own company. Surely this consciousness is bound up with my brain, which is part of my body, and so it could hardly transcend death.

From there, I reasoned that any existence beyond death must be im-personal, simply as part of the great web of life. Such speculative reasoning left room for a diffused connection to God, but it seemed very abstract and not very Jewish. Somewhat later, when beginning to do meditation, I strove to direct my ruach-breath toward the overall breath of life; to link my neshama-spirit with the Great Spirit. This often failed but the striving was still meaningful. The idea that Adonai will somehow be my inheritance when my time comes has helped me along, even when my sense of God wavers. I have emerged convinced, not rationally but intuitively, that if God exists, then we who are somehow made in God’s image must have an enduring existence beyond the grave.

When our family experienced death during the past year, I took great comfort in the final verse of Adon Olam, especially its opening line: B’yado afkeed ruchi: “In God’s hand I place my soul,” as well as in the idea that the departed would be “bound up in the bond of everlasting life.” But more than any other liturgical touchstone, El Maleh Rachamim helped me by proclaiming, loud and clear, that Adonai’s enduring presence comes to the dead person as a kind of delayed birthright, an inheritance that will endure into eternity.

As the year 2022 has continued, with Covid still a force and time moving relentlessly on even as our sense of time distorts, I have continued to reflect on mortality. I have come to believe that something like a soul exists within myself and others,

that these souls survive death of the body and its brain, and that souls released from physical boundaries may encounter one another beyond earth. I envision a baby emerging from the womb as containing soulful raw material that earthly living shapes into a personalized soul. The best expression of this idea that I know is in one of John Keats’ letters, where he writes: “Call the world if you please ‘the vale of Soul-making’.”

I pause now to articulate a question that may already have occurred to some of you: On this holiest day of the Jewish year, when we gather to confess and be renewed as a community within the Jewish People, why does Susan Laemmle present a largely anecdotal account of her personal spiritual development? Not merely to express myself I hope, but to speak out about how the death of people we love connects to our own eventual death — and how thinking through our views of mortality and immortality can provide both comfort and reassurance.

Of course, love and memory also matter. We remember the dead and hope to be remembered after we pass away. We hold onto the experience of loving someone even after their passing; it endures within us and influences us towards good. We give charity and do righteous acts with the dead person in mind. But loving memory is not everything. And for me at least, it is not enough. I need, and thankfully I have managed to find, a silken cord to hold onto — a cord woven from texts and inner experience and sources beyond explanation. I believe that such a cord is there for each of us, but we must weave it ourselves.

My library contains a good many books about these topics. It’s worth knowing how Jewish views of an afterlife have evolved and diversified over the decades and centuries; worth reading how saying Mourner’s Kaddish has been deeply meaningful for even unobservant Jews; worth learning how others have coped with loss through strengthened communal ties or Torah study or acts of Lovingkindness. I find such material interesting and sometimes helpful. But mostly in addition to Jewish primary sources, it’s poems that really help, especially in the dark hours. The best of them buffer loss with beauty, reassuring us in a way different from the Kaddish and yet fundamentally the same.

Let me end, then, with a poem. A very short poem whose nuanced slant on death and life doesn’t quite line up with

this Dvar Torah, but whose near-perfection nonetheless makes it a fitting companion piece to El Maleh Rachaimim.

Here is Raymond Carver’s “Late Fragment”:

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah, Shanah Tovah ooh’metukah.