Sh’lach L’Cha—שלח לך

By Zwi Reznik, By June 5, 2021, 25 Sivan 5781

I have a fondness for the work of Rabbi Dr. Avraham Twerski, z’’l, a Hassidic Rabbi as well as a psychiatrist. In one of his brief commentaries I first read a sentence I took to heart. “There are four essentials for human life: Food and Water, Clothing, Shelter and someone to blame”. I’ll be getting back to Rabbi Twerski later, but in the meantime keep that sentence in mind.

Parsha Sh’lach L’cha begins with God commanding Moshe to send a group of twelve men to 13:2“… scout the land of Canaan…”. Moshe selects them and sends them on their mission. Among them are כלב and הושע who, significantly, Moshe renames יהושע by adding a י to his name. Moshe gives them instructions and sends them on their way. We can see the beginnings of a problem in verse 22 where the text refers to the  ”…offspring of the giant—ילידי הענק…”. I need to make a comment on translation here. The Jewish Publication Society translation and others use “…the Anakites…” instead of “…offspring of the giant…”. In his footnote to this verse Alter states “22. …offspring of the giant. The second Hebrew term here, ʿanaq, is understood by some modern translators to be an ethnic designation (“Anakites”). The words of the scouts, however, in verse 33, clearly place “offspring of the ʿanaq” in apposition with Nephilim, the legendary man-god hybrids mentioned in Genesis 6:1–4, and there is no indication elsewhere of an ethnic group called Anakites. (On the basis of this chapter,  ‘anaq’ in all subsequent strata of Hebrew is the standard term for “giant.”) The legendary scale of the bounty of the land, its “fatness,” is matched by the legendary proportions of its inhabitants. It should be noted that this representation of Hebron inhabited by giants swerves from the depiction of Hebron in Genesis 25, where the local denizens are ordinary, and commercially shrewd, Hittites. (Genesis 25 is at the end of חיי שרה where Avraham’s purchase of the cave of Machpelah from the Hittites is noted).

The scouting party moves on, grabs a huge cluster of grapes, as well as pomegranates and dates, and returns. They confirm that they have seen a land flowing with Milk and Honey and then ten of them horrify everyone with what else they have seen. כלב attempts to respond to the ten by referring to the land saying in verse 30 “We will surely go up and take hold of it, for we will surely prevail over it.” However, the damage has been done and the chapter ends with Verses 32 and 33 “32And they put forth an ill report to the Israelites of the land that they had scouted, saying, “The land through which we passed to scout is a land that consumes those who dwell in it, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of huge measure. 33And there did we see the Nephilim, sons of the giant from the Nephilim, and we were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.”

Chapter 14 opens with the people in full panic mode. Finally, God has enough and threatens to kill off everyone with a plague. After substantial effort by Moshe, God relents and decides to just have them die off slowly in the Wilderness leaving only  כלב and יהושע of the generation of slaves to make it to Canaan. The chapter ends with the people now expressing regret and proceeding to mount an utterly useless and disastrous attack on a position held by Amalekites and Canaanites. The text is somewhat vague with the details.

I must note that I have not presented a Drash since November of 2019, about nineteen months ago. At that time I spoke of parshat לך לך. My choice for today sounds somewhat similar—Sh’lach L’Cha. The similarity is due to the fact that this parsha name begins with an imperative form of a verb. In particular God speaks directly to Moshe with a clear command (Sh’lach!)ְ, i.e. SEND!. שלח! is the second person, singular, masculine imperative form of the verb לשלוח-to SEND. The addition of the next word לך seems somewhat redundant. Translators and commentators have written of this two word phrase and its significance. There is also further commentary on the third word of verse 2, אנשים  MEN. In the English translation of the Midrash Tanchuma on Sefaria the translation “Send men for yourself…” appears. (Note that the Midrash Tanchuma was composed in Talmudic Babylon/Italy/Israel c.500 – c.800 CE and it was often cited by Rashii). In Alter the three word phrase is similarly translated as 2“Send you men…”,

So it is Moshe who is going to be organizing this scouting expedition! In fact a little bit later in Chapter 13 we see that it is Moshe, naming the members of the expedition. It’s not God doing it. It was God who had previously called out the names of the leaders of the military assemblage seen in Parsha במדבר. We see that the impending disaster of this twelve man expedition is being put on Moshe. In addition the character of these men is noted in Alter’s footnote to verse 13:3 “ …all of them men. Rashi, followed by several modern commentators, proposes that “men” has the connotation of men of stature. In the present context, that might mean military prowess—a trait that would make the fearful majority report of the scouts all the more shameful.”

The Midrash Tanchuma continues with comments on later verses דבורים from in 1:21-22. First the verses from Alter’s translation “21 See, the LORD your God has given the land before you. Go up, take hold, as the LORD God of your fathers has spoken to you. Be not afraid nor be dismayed.’ That’s what God has said! Moshe goes on: 22 And you came forward to me, all of you, and you said, ‘Let us send men before us that they probe the land for us and bring back word to us of the way on which we should go up and the towns into which we should come.’ From this Midrash, also quoted extensively by Rashi, we read: “Even though the Holy the Holy One, blessed be He, had said to Moses, “Send men for yourself,” it was not [the wish] of the Holy One, blessed be He, for them to go.¹³See Numb. R. 16:7. Why? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, had already told them [about] the superiority of the Land of Israel. It is so stated (in Deut. 8:7), “For the Lord your God is bringing you unto a good land.” Moreover, while they had been in Egypt, he had said to them (in Exod. 3:8), “I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians [and to bring them up out of that land unto a good and spacious land].” And Scripture states (in Exod. 13:21), “And the Lord went in front of them by day.” So, blame Moshe.

Commentary in this vein continues to modern time. Moving ahead from the Midrash Tanchuma about 1300 to 1600 years, we come to a commentary by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks on שלח לך written prior to his death in November, 2020. It is titled “Confidence”. These commentaries are based Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks previous book Lessons in Leadership. It begins “It was perhaps the single greatest collective failure of leadership in the Torah. Ten of the spies whom Moses had sent to spy out the land came back with a report calculated to demoralise the nation”. He then goes on to quote several of the verses that I have already from the end of Chapter 13. Rabbi Lord Sacks seems to implicate Moshe in this failure of leadership. In addition the ten spies lacked confidence due to a lack of effective leadership! That lack of confidence led to the failure and condemned the people to forty years of wandering.  He does praise כלב and ,יהושעfor showing leadership, but notes that the ten did not listen. Rabbi Lord Sacks then compliments and paraphrases a commentary by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.  Rabbi Schneerson’s opinion was that the ten were actually afraid of victory, regardless of what they reported back to Moshe and the people. That in fact they were content to remain in the wilderness where “they lived in close and continuous proximity to God”. If on the other hand they reported that they were in agreement with what כלב  had argued in verse 13:30 noted above—i.e. “We will surely go up and take hold of it, for we will surely prevail over it.”, they would be faced with fighting wars, ploughing land, planting seed and so on in the land of Canaan. So we have moved on from blaming just Moshe to now including the ten for their share. I must admit that reading the entire Rabbi Lord Sacks’ commentary was oddly intriguing, which is why I have included it but, I am not entirely comfortable with it. In fairness, I would suggest that you find it online and form your own opinion. That said, I’ll go back to Rabbi Dr. Twerski now.

I have a collection of his brief commentaries on all the parshaot. He has titled the one on שלח לך “Misguided Humility”. I would like to quote from it. “In this week’s portion of the Torah we read of the tragic consequences of misguided humility. The saga of the spies sent by Moses to bring back a report of the Promised Land, which eventuated in the Divine decree that the generation of the Exodus must perish during forty years of wandering in the desert, represents both a lack of trust in God and a lack of faith in one’s self”. Then, after quoting the second half of verse 13.33, about feeling like grasshoppers in the presence of the Nephilim, Rabbi Dr. Twerski then quotes Rashi’s comment on the verse, “We heard them—i.e.the GIANTS, say about us, ‘There are ants crawling about in our vineyards, ‘ ”. In other words, since the ten saw themselves as grasshoppers, they would then think of themselves as being perceived as the even more diminutive ants in the eyes of the Nephilim.

Rabbi Twerski then concludes his commentary by bringing in the concept of the yeitzer hara and that it may try to confuse us by giving us “…the impression that we are in remorse for our sins, while the true fact is that the yeitzer hara is simply trying to paralyze us with depression”. The commentary concludes with the sentence “We have too much to accomplish to allow ourselves to be disabled by unwarranted feelings of unworthiness”.

I used to wonder about my affinity for Rabbi Twerski’s writings given the stark differences in our theological views. However, those disagreements are minor given what I see as the demonstration of the compassion of the true physician.

Finally, I’ll turn to one more commentary which I discovered which proposes a seemingly radical idea. Moses should have sent men! As noted above the three word phrase שלח לך אנשים  is best translated as “send men for yourself” or “send for yourself men”, or “send you men” and NOT just “send men”. The idea of sending women originated with Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz (1550-1619) who was the Rabbi of Prague. It appears in his 16^th century  Torah commentary know at the Kli Yakar—כלי יקר. By definition a Kli Yakar can also be a person. That title originated from Proverbs 20:15—“15There is gold with abundance of rubies, but lips of knowledge are a precious vessel”.

As far as I could tell Sefaria only has a Hebrew version of the Kli Yikar. What I’m quoting from is a translation that was posted by a Rabbi Joyce Newmark.

Our Rabbis said, the men hated the land and were the ones who said, “let us head back for Egypt” [Numbers 14:4] and the women loved the land and said, “give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen” [Numbers 27:4, the story of the daughters of Zelophechad, five sisters who asked that they be given the share of the land that would have gone to their father who died without sons]. The Holy Blessed One said, “In My opinion … it would be better to send women who love the land for they will not defame it. But you, (i.e. Moshe) according to your opinion that they are fit and that they love the land, want to send men. This is the meaning of ‘send for yourself men’ — according to your opinion, men, but in my opinion it would be better to send women.”

 I’ll end with a personal observation. I’ve shared with friends that I was once advised by a Hospice counselor that whether I wanted to or not I was starting a new life. As it turned out that involved choosing to move to Los Angeles. Clearly that was nowhere near as frightening as the idea of trudging across a desert and fighting Amelikites. The move has turned out well for me. Since its spring I will very much enjoy seeing the Jacaranda trees in bloom around my apartment building. I am also recalling that I’ve also seen Jacaranda trees in Israel, where my thoughts have been focused lately.

Shabbat Shalom

Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary . W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Behaalotecha

By Stevie Green, 29 May 2021

Imagine if you can a societal upheaval.  An international event that kills many thousands and terrifies millions more.  A cataclysm of biblical proportions that threatens our very ability to gather together for Passover as we were accustomed to.  Hard as it is for us to imagine, such was the circumstance approximately 2,750 years ago.

The 2^nd Book of Chronicles, chapter 30, tells this story about King יְחִזְקִיָּ֜הוּ / Hezekiah.

The king and his officers and the congregation in Jerusalem had agreed to keep the Passover in the second month, for at the time, they were unable to keep it, for not enough priests had sanctified themselves, nor had the people assembled in Jerusalem.

The book of Chronicles presents this lack of preparedness as the result of the abandonment of social norms, religious values, and basic decency during the previous political administration.  Again, hard for us to imagine today.  However, some modern scholars doubt the chronology as presented.  Dr. David Glatt-Gilad of Ben-Gurion University writes:

The Chronicler’s dating of Hezekiah’s cultic reforms and Passover celebration to the very beginning of his reign reflects a literary-theological convention aimed at highlighting the king’s dedication to the cult, and most likely does not preserve the event’s actual chronological setting.

Rather, he argues, Hezekiah’s purpose was to reunite the people after the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrian Empire around the year 720 BCE.

In this week’s parasha, we read about a somewhat similar circumstance.

But there were some men who were unclean by reason of a corpse and could not offer the passover sacrifice on that day                 [they go to Moses, Moses goes to G-d, G-d answers]     When any of you or of your posterity who are defiled by a corpse or are on a long journey would offer a passover sacrifice to the LORD, they shall offer it in the second month, on the fourteenth day of the month,                    [skip a bit]           They shall offer it in strict accord with the law of the passover sacrifice.

Both our Rabbinic interpretive tradition and contemporary academic bible scholars are unsure of how these stories are related.  At first glance, the text of chronicles “for not enough priests had sanctified themselves, nor had the people assembled in Jerusalem” seems to correspond to being “defiled” or “on a journey”.  Unfortunately, the similarities basically end there and the differences are significant.

1. Most obviously, Pesach Sheni seems to be a supplement to pesach rishon, for the people who need it only, not a postponement for everybody.
2. More importantly, Pesach Sheni is a 2^nd chance specifically for the Korban Pesach, the offering on the afternoon of the 14^th of Nissan, not the week-long Chag HaMatzos that begins a few hours later at sundown of the 15^th and which we still observe today. However, the story in chronicles explicitly includes both.
3. Pesach Sheni is supposed to follow “all the laws of the Passover”, but Hezekiah allows those who are still unpure to eat from it – which seems to be the exact opposite of the basic purpose of pesach sheni.
4. The book of Chronicles sometimes refers to Hezekiah as acting כְּמִשְׁפָּטָם כְּתוֹרַת מֹשֶׁה “like the laws of the Torah of Moses”. In this case however, it is described as בְּלֹא כַכָּתוּב “not as it is written”.  In other words, the Chronicler seems to think of this event as a justified and necessary response to the time of need, what later rabbis would call בִּשׁעַת הַדְחָק , rather than a fulfilment of an existing law.

Recognizing these differences, the Mishna Pesachim 4:9 describes Hezekiah’s decree as עיבר ניסן בניסן, “he added another Nisan when it was already Nisan” – ie. He established a leap year somewhat retroactively and thus pushed off the holiday one month – thus straining the definition of “in the 2^nd month”.  The Talmud in Sanhedrin 12b records the mishna’s opinion as the majority, but also gives voice to the suggestion that it was in fact Pesach Sheni.

Academics see no need to justify the delay beyond what the text of Chronicles tells us, “G-d heard Hezekiah’s prayer and healed the people” ie. G-d approved.  For critical biblical scholars, the Torah was something of a work in progress while Hezekiah reigned, and the book of Chronicles is unreliable having been written centuries later.  Therefore, it is not clear what historically occurred or how it influenced or was influenced by any written texts that became part of the Chumash.  What is clear, is that Hezekiah was reaching out to the population of the Northern Kingdom, either in anticipation of or in response to the Assyrian invasion.  The text continues:

The couriers went out with the letters from the king and his officers through all Israel and Judah, by order of the king, proclaiming, “O you Israelites! Return to the LORD God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will return to the remnant of you who escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria.

And they go on to tell the people that G-d will reverse their misfortunes – concluding:

“The LORD your God is gracious and merciful; He will not turn His face from you if you return to Him.”

The text then tells us which tribes “laughed at and mocked” the couriers and from which tribes “some of the people came to Jerusalem”

Archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman in “The Bible Unearthed” describe the period immediately after the destruction of the North as “a sudden coming of age” for Judah.  They write:

“The royal citadel in Jerusalem was transformed in a single generation from the seat of a rather insignificant royal dynasty into the political and religious nerve center of a regional power – both because of dramatic internal developments and because thousands of refugees from the conquered kingdom of Israel fled to the south.”

They go on to estimate that the population of Jerusalem rose from about one thousand to about 15,000 inhabitants.  And that the total population of Judah grew from a few tens of thousands to 120,000.  While other estimates may be more modest, it seems sensible that Hezekiah was highly motivated to reach out to and accommodate the northerners.

What is also clear is that Hezekiah is the hero to the Chronicler.  In the following chapter, we read:

He acted in a way that was good, upright, and faithful before the LORD his God.  Every work he undertook in the service of the House of God or in the Teaching and the Commandment, to worship his God, he did with all his heart; and he prospered.

Scholars date the writing of the book of Chronicles to sometime after the return from exile, probably during the early 4^th century BCE.  The community that had returned from Babylonian exile was “too frum”, to put it mildly, for the local Jews – and was in power.  We also know that sometime later, there was a parting of ways between the Samaritans and the Jews.  So the book of Chronicles was likely written between those events.  The politics of that period are impossible to know in detail, but no doubt it was a time of great division.

Dr. David Glatt-Gilad writes: The Chronicler’s positive depiction of Hezekiah’s outreach to the northerners, even at the expense of setting aside strict adherence to Torah law, would reflect the premium that the Chronicler put on communal unity and cooperation as a bulwark for preventing any possible split in the community.  Sadly, the Chronicler’s ideal vision did not come to pass, as the Samaritan split-off … was only the first of many Jewish sects that were to characterize later Second Temple Judaism.

Today, we as a minyan and as part of the larger Jewish world are grappling with what kinds of accommodations to make for our community members who can’t or don’t feel comfortable to attend in person, and also those who don’t feel comfortable with some of the proposed technological intrusions into our sacred spaces.  Personally, my gut tells me that, at least on a national level, that the advocates for change, though they seem to come from a distance, are in fact powerful and may wind up causing schism like the returnees from Babylonia did with their authority.  I prefer the model of pesach sheni as described in the parasha, in which space is made for those who can’t attend normally, but not at the expense of the normal.  But I’m not going to leave you with my opinions.  I’d like to leave you with a Talmudic teaching based on another episode from today’s parasha.

Berakhot 34a

the Sages taught: There was an incident where one student descended before the ark in the presence of Rabbi Eliezer, and he was excessively prolonging his prayer. His students said to him: How long-winded he is. He said to them: Is he prolonging more than Moses our teacher did? As it is written: “And I prostrated myself before the Lord for the forty days and forty nights” (Deuteronomy 9:25).

There was again an incident where one student descended before the ark in the presence Rabbi Eliezer and he was excessively abbreviating his prayer. His students said to him: How brief is his prayer. He said to them: Is he abbreviating more than Moses our teacher? As it is written, “God, please, heal, please, her” (Numbers 12:13).

Hard for us to believe, but people used to complain about davening.

Seriously though, it is frighteningly easy to be kvetchy and judgmental.  If we are to avoid schism, we much choose to resist that tendency.

Shabbat Shalom

 

Emor

By Rachel Rubin Green, May 5, 2021

I embrace the concept that God and the people Israel are partners in the maintenance and improvement of our world. In his current commentary on this week’s Parsha, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg cites a Rabbinic interpretation of Chapter 23 Verse 2 that supports this view. As an introduction to the holiday calendar, God says to Moses, “These are the fixed times of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as Sacred Occasions, they are my fixed times.”  The Etz Hayim uses the term “Fixed times.” Rabbi Greenberg uses the term “Feast Days” instead.

As Rabbi Greenberg explains:

The Rabbis break up the Torah verse into three stages.

1. Until Israel entered into covenant— literally, became God’s people, “the feast days… [of, or are set by] the Lord.” For example, the Shabbat was sanctified and ordained by God before the Jewish people even existed.
2. Once Israel became people of the covenant, God said: “Which you shall declare [these] to be days of holy gathering.” This refers to the rabbinic courts declaring the date of the New Month (Rosh Hodesh) and thereby setting the dates of the holidays/feast days.
3. By Israel’s actions, “these are [or become] My [God’s commanded] feasts.”

Rashi, in particular, asserts that, “From this verse we derive the law that (it is the responsibility) of the Sanhedrin (to) proclaim a leap year.” Rashi qualifies this assertion by explaining that, (it is) “for the sake of those living in the diaspora who have left their homes to go to Jerusalem for the festival but have not yet arrived.” Still, God requires the Rabbinic Court to set, and to update with leap years as necessary, the timing of our annual festivals.

This notion that scheduling and keeping the festivals is a human responsibility, part of our end of the divine-human partnership, is consistent with an interpretation of a difference in the Shabbat and festival Kiddush that I learned from our son Stevie some years ago.  On Shabbat, we say “Mekadesh HaShabbat” that God has made the Shabbat holy without us needing to do anything. On Yom Tov, however, we say “Mekadesh Yisrael v’ Hazmanim.” God made the people of Israel holy who in turn made the festival holy. The festivals remain holy only because we keep them. Rabbi Greenberg essentially states that God needs us as partners in all earthly activity, including, but not limited to, festival observances.

Later in this same commentary, Rabbi Greenberg quotes Rav Joseph Soloveitchik as saying,

(we as Jews), “received the Torah from Sinai not as a simple recipient but as a creator of worlds, as a Partner with the Almighty in the act of Creation.”

Rabbi Greenberg continues: “This partnership gives humans the task to apply the Torah in new or changed conditions. We have the responsibility to find new ways of living properly, as are necessary. This includes when there is new evidence and new understanding and the inherited Torah is having destructive effects, the human partner has the responsibility to adjust the Torah to make sure that it is (as it wants to be) on the side of life and world repair.”

Greenberg mentions his own efforts in keeping the Torah on the side of life and world repair. One project is that he works with leaders in other faith communities to increase mutual respect among members.  Another is to affirm the dignity and inclusion of LGBTQ individuals in Jewish life. In arguing for the critical role of human actions as God’s partners, Greenberg again quotes Rav Soloveitchik, “It is as if the Creator of the world Himself abides by man’s decision and instruction.” Rabbi Greenberg concludes this commentary with, “God and the Torah depend on later generations to be responsible partners. It is the partner’s task to ensure that the Torah is humane and life affirming in all its applications.”

In addition to Rabbi Greenberg’s commentary, there is another, more obvious, reason that I wanted to discuss the calendar section of our Parsha today.  Our Library Minyan community has not met in person for prayer in more than one entire holiday cycle. From just after Purim in 5780 until now, right after Lag b’Omer 5781, we have met online or as part of our greater Beth Am community, but not distinctly as the Library Minyan. I have missed you. Each of you and all of you.

Before going any further, I want to extend profound gratitude to all of you who work in the technology sector. Your professional expertise enabled us to connect electronically when it was medically hazardous to meet in person. We are forever in your debt.

How did you spend your Shabbatot during the pandemic? Maybe you davened with our Beth Am clergy online. Maybe you attended a small, socially distanced backyard minyan.  aybe you drash-surfed the internet, trying to hear as many different drashot and interpretations of the parsha as possible. Maybe you did something else entirely.

My pandemic Shabbat pattern became first; online Mishnah study, followed by a long walk with my friend and neighbor Hannah Kramer, usually returning in time to hear either Rabbi Kligfeld or Rabbi Schatz give a drash. Not bad, but I did feel something missing in this pattern. You. Each of you. And the moments of ascension I sometimes experience in the prayer space we create together.

One thing I learned about myself during the pandemic was that I learn well online. I loved learning online. The minimal commute time was great. Over the year, I attended classes and discussions provided by our Beth Am clergy and also by teachers at Hartman Institute, Hadar, JTS, RA, CA, The Forward, Limmud UK, Limmud North America, UCLA Hillel, and our own AJU, among others. My new best friends are Barbara Breger and Renne Bainvoll, who spend 4 hours each week in Zoom classes with me. The most emotionally satisfying online class was attending Kid’s Parsha Club, sponsored by Hadar and taught by Rabbi Aviva Richman, with my grandson Archer each week. All in all, my pandemic year was exceptionally rich in Jewish learning.

I also learned that the rich learning experience did not transfer into prayer. I found it difficult to reach towards God via my computer screen. Without the cushion and bounce of community energy, I felt that my attempts praying online highlighted my isolation, rather than relieved it. This was entirely different than what I felt and still feel while learning online. On the days I joined an online minyan for Yartzeit, I found the communal recitation of Mourner’s Kaddish helpful. But not the same. I still missed you, each of you and all of you. This community.

The contrast between what I feel learning online and what I feel attempting to pray online reminded me of one of my favorite of Rabbi Rembaum’s teachings. “My theology is my community.” Maybe I focused on that saying because I was feeling it’s inverse – that in the physical absence of community, I could not reach towards or grasp my theology.  In preparing this drash, I asked Rabbi Rembaum to elaborate on this particular saying.

Here is what he said:

“It is in the human interaction in a community that I see Tzelem Elohim manifest. We define God as loving, caring, compassionate, just, healing, and strengthening. When I see people acting out these essential elements of divine activity in their relations with others, my faith in God, creator of all creatures and eternally true principles, is affirmed.”

I agree.  And the qualities that Rabbi Rembaum mentioned continue to infuse our interpersonal interactions. For that, we continue to be intensely grateful. However, without seeing each other regularly, it felt like creating these interactions required additional effort, often more than I could summon.

In another 15 days, we will finish counting the Omer for 5781. The actual quantity of the daily Omer offering, which we recall in this annual Mitzvah of counting days, was small enough to not create an economic burden. This pandemic year has certainly been a year of counting.  How many times did you change flight tickets this past year? I think Norm rescheduled his flight to visit our New Jersey family 4 times. And now that they are moving to Arizona, the newest reschedule is to fly there instead. How many family simchas (smachot), or sadly, funerals, did you attend on Zoom instead of in person? How smachot were cancelled or rescheduled? And how many times? For much of this year, we counted days between a COVID test and seeing our results. In just the last few months, we counted the days until our age cohort or profession became vaccine eligible. We counted the hours we waited in line to get our shot or shots, and then the days after that until we felt it was safe to be in each other’s company.  We have had a great deal of practice in counting this year. Our routine lives have required immense patience.

I leave you with three challenges. First, in the model of Rabbi Greenberg, I challenge you to be full partners in creation of our post-pandemic intimate community and larger world. Second, in the model of Rabbi Rembaum, I challenge you to continue, or to increase the presence of Tzelem Elohim, the overlap of community and theology, in the way we treat each other. And lastly, as our time of counting concludes, I challenge you to do something small each day, like the Omer offering, to make yourself, and this community, count.

Shabbat Shalom.

Vayishlach וישלח

By Zwi Reznik  , November 24, 2018, 16 Kislev 5779

The journey continues. When we left Yaakov last week he was on the run again, as he had been for the last twenty years. In this week’s parsha he stops for a while. The parsha opens with his preparations for meeting his estranged brother Esau. Before they meet Yaakov has a wrenching nighttime encounter which transforms him into Israel. The meeting with Esau actually goes well and they agree to see each other again soon—but we all know how those kinds of plans often work out. This is then followed by a horrific tale of what happens to Yaakov’s daughter Dinah, the subsequent violent conduct of his sons and this story closes with Yaakov being rebuked by two of those sons. The text then returns to Yaakov’s journey, new blessings from God and the deaths of those closest to him. The parsha ends with a lengthy genealogy of Esau. Clearly my first task in preparing this brief drash was to get focused. So let’s get back to just Yaakov.

Yaakov knows he cannot keep running and avoid dealing with his brother and what he,  Yaakov, did to him. Recall that Yaakov had once taken advantage of Esau’s great hunger and managed to buy the elder brother’s birthright for a bowl of lentils. That was followed by following his mother’s guidance in a scheme to trick Yitzhak into giving him, rather than Esau, his blessing and his mother’s subsequent advice to run for his life. He can’t avoid dealing with this anymore. So he sends messengers to Esau to let him know that he’s been with their uncle, that he’s done well and (32:6) “…I send this message to my lord in hope of gaining your favor”. The response, via the messengers is brief, (32:7) “… he himself is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him”.

In antiquity these are enough men to constitute an army. Then in (32-8) “Yaakov was greatly frightened…”. So he prepares. Rashii succinctly notes that he does so in three ways—“by war, by prayer and by gifts”. Specifically that is, firstly, with strategic planning by splitting all the people and livestock into two camps; secondly, with prayer. After reminding God that he’s on the move because of God’s advice, he then says—(32-11): “I am unworthy of all the kindness that you have steadfastly shown your servant; with my staff alone I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps”. In other words he’s gone from being homeless with just the clothes on his back to becoming wealthy. This is not just a prayer which is asking for things. It is emphatically a statement of GRATITUDE! Think about how much of our own prayer today, on Shabbat, is just saying Thank You. Something has changed in Yaakov after twenty years of servitude with Laban. He is no longer just the “cheat” or “usurper” that his name would indicate. Finally in preparation he prepares a huge gift for Esau. Five hundred and fifty head of livestock; in the gender proportions that would assure future exponential growth in this herd! Now it is nighttime. There is one more thing to do. He takes his wives, maid servants, his eleven children and all his possessions across the stream. Then, (32:25) “Yaakov was left alone,”. He is alone and in the dark!

We know what’s coming next but, I want to pause here for a moment. Why did he do that and leave himself alone. Was this some sort of protective act? That is, separating himself, the object of Esau’s hate, from his wives, maids and children. We’ll see him doing something similar to that the next morning. Or was it something as simple as wanting to be alone so he can be by himself and think about what is happening and how he got to this point. The last time he was home, twenty years before, his mother told him to run because his brother was coming for him. Now his brother is coming for him and with an army behind him! Now, back to(32:25)—“Yaakov was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.”.

We know how the fight turns out. This “man” is losing the fight and tries to prevail by injuring Yaakov. That doesn’t work and Yaakov demands a blessing to let him go. So Yaakov becomes Israel—one who strives with God. This is definitely an improvement over “cheat” and “usurper”.  Further, a name change is a clear acknowledgement of an overwhelming transformation of the spirit. We’ve seen that before with Avram becoming Avraham and Sarai becoming Sarah. However those were just a change of a single letter. Israel is a much more comprehensive change.

Now the commentaries of the Midrash do identify this man as an angel of a sort. This sometimes included this angel as being specifically Esau’s angel or guardian which would make this a fight between Yaakov and Esau. We must consider that the writing of the Midrash took place in the context of knowing what happens in the future between Esau-Edom and Israel’s descendants, as well as the period following the devastation done by the Romans. There are in the Midrash commentaries which are even critical of Yaakov and berate him for sending gifts and being conciliatory to Esau. A medieval commentary by Rabbi David Kimhi of Provence states that “God sent his angel to strengthen Yaakov’s courage; having overcome him, he need not fear Esau”.

However for a contrast we should consider Nehama Leibowitz. She notes some of these preceding commentaries but her comments take a different direction. Firstly, she states noting Yaakov’s fear, that “Yaakov’s fears were not indicative of lack of trust in God, but rather a lack of confidence in oneself, in one’s own worthiness and conduct”.  So suppose lack of confidence in oneself and in one’s own worthiness are at the root of Yaakov’s feelings of anxiety and stress as he waits alone and in the dark for Esau and his army. So, with that in mind let me explicitly state that Yaakov’s struggling with a man is Yaakov struggling with himself. That struggle to transform oneself and rid oneself of undesirable character traits can itself be the cause of great fatigue and even physical pain. Of course these are not new thoughts original to me and there are numerous contemporary commentaries which correspond to my own thoughts and that can easily be found. However let’s continue with commentaries that are both contemporary as well as traditional in outlook.

Rabbi Avraham Twerski, M.D, is both a Hasidic rabbi and a psychiatrist. He had a psychiatric practice that specialized in addiction treatment. He has a large body of work related to his medical practice. Much of it is addressed to general audiences and much of it is also addressed to Jewish audiences. One of those oriented to Jewish audiences contains short commentaries on each of the parshas in the Torah. The one for Vayishlach, titled “Changing Character Traits” includes the following: “ For Torah to transform one’s personality, the study of Torah in the abstract does not suffice. It must be studied with the intent to live up to what it teaches, and it must be implemented in daily living. The study must involve the ethical as well as the formal halachic aspects. Then and only then can we expect favorable changes in our personalities to occur.”

I also like the clarity and simplicity provided by another of Nehama Leibowitz’s comments:  “We have merely to try to understand the significance of the struggle and what the Torah wished to teach us through it.”

So if we accept the need to do so, as Yaakov did heading into that lonely night, a transformation of the spirit is possible.

Next the text informs us that with the break of day Yaakov sees Esau and his army approaching. Israel moves out ahead of his wives, maids and children so that Esau will see him first and that he is separated from the others.  We thus see again the protective move akin to what Yaakov had done the night before by separating himself from everyone and everything else. He bows seven times. Then (33:4)—“Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him and falling on his neck, he kissed him; and he wept.”. (I have to note that this verse almost exactly describes my father’s description of seeing his brother the first time they met at the airport in Israel twenty-four years after separating in Italy. The only difference was they went to a men’s room first for some privacy). By the way, the Midrash which won’t cut Esau any slack, states that Esau was trying to bite him in the neck. Family is introduced, and after some back and forth Esau accepts Israel’s gift. Rashii notes that Yaakov saying “Please accept my present” is to be understood literally as “Please accept my blessing…”. Both of them know what Yaakov had done, but, with this conversation Esau seems to be saying “I’m doing fine as well, we’re OK!”. They separate and move on.

What happens to Yaakov-Israel next is one tragedy after another in this parsha and the ones to follow. I initially noted the tale of what happened to Dinah and the conduct of her brothers and I will not be talking about that. In the next chapter, 35, there is a seemingly out of place verse which reports that (35:8)—“Deborah, Rivkah’s nurse, died, and was buried…”. We have not seen this Deborah since a brief mention of Rivkah’s unnamed nurse (wet-nurse) who accompanies her on the way to meet Yitzhak. Both Rashi and Nachmanides state that this verse is here to note that Rivkah has died and that Deborah’s death and burial are when Yaakov finds out about it. Yet, Torah makes no specific mention of his mother’s death! I must leave it for others more learned than myself to comment on this erasure of one of the matriarchs. Nachmanides also goes on to comment that this, his mother’s death, is why in the next verse God reappears to Israel. God confirms his earlier name change and promises that a great nation shall descend from him and that the land assigned to Avraham and Yitzhak are assigned to him. However, there is nothing promised to Yaakov in the way of a tranquil life.

Then Rivkah dies.

In another one of his works Rabbi Twerski writes; “We should understand that absolute tranquility is not achievable and that realistic peace of mind exists with some stress and tension”. There are other learned commentaries in a similar vein. For myself I would prefer to close with a poem I first heard at the funeral of a young woman thirty two years ago. At that time I just heard sadness, however, with time I’ve learned it is comforting and provides some measure of hope.

‘Tis a fearful thing

‘Tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.

A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to be –

to be,
And oh, to lose.

A thing for fools, this,

And a holy thing,

a holy thing
to love.

For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.

To remember this brings painful joy.

‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.

– Yehuda HaLevi

 

 

 

 

Fireworks and Wildflowers

By Rabbi Ilana Grinblatt, July 10, 2020

As the sound of fireworks kept me awake at 2:00 am, all I could think about was August 2021.

My sister Mira told me earlier that day that she read an article in the New York Times that said the process of developing and distributing a vaccine for Coronavirus could be completed by August 2021. Mira meant to share this as encouraging news, but to me, August 2021 seemed like an eternity away. Having lived nearly four months in a state of isolation, stress and vigilance, I can’t imagine living like this for another 13 months. Could we dodge the disease for another 13 months? Can we live another 13 months without any guests entering our home and not entering anyone else’s home? How can we endure another 13 months of losing joy after joy, plan after plan?

On CNN, a woman named Maya Mckenzie was interviewed about a piece she wrote about being pregnant and black during the pandemic. She wrote “this virus hasn’t taken anyone from me. But I have experienced the deep grief of lost joy.” Indeed, in addition to taking loved ones, every day this virus steals more joy from all of us – the joy of summer adventures, birthday parties, or hugs of friends or extended family.

Or in other words, the Vav in our Shalom is broken. In the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, God gives Pinchas, Aaron’s grandson, a covenant of peace – but in the word Shalom (peace), the letter vav, which normally stands straight and tall, is broken. 

How fitting that Maya named her unborn daughter Paz (which means peace in Spanish). Even as the joy of her pregnancy was taken and replaced by anxiety about the Coronavirus, Maya dreams of paz. Somehow, in all different languages around the world, the virus is eroding our peace.

I am reminded of two stories. The first was in a novel by Mitch Albom, called The Next Person you Meet in Heaven. This book tells the story of Annie, who while mourning for the death of her newborn son, decides to become a nurse. In describing her grief, Albom wrote, “She was broken open. But broken open is still open.”

The second story is one I read by P.J. Long, a mom who suffered a traumatic brain injury when she fell off a horse. In her book, Gifts from a Broken Jar, she recounts a story from India about a village boy who walked each day for several miles from the river to the village, carrying water in two clay jars, one of which was cracked. The man who bought the water would pay for one full jar of water, and one half full, since the water from the cracked jar had leaked.

One day, when the boy sat to rest on his walk, the spirit of the cracked jar apologized to the boy for leaking. The boy replied,

“Because of you, I am very lucky. A broken jar makes life beautiful. Come, let me show you.” Together they walked back to the river. One side of the path was bare and dusty. But along the other side, where water had trickled down from the broken jar, the way was strewn with wildflowers.

PJ Long saw the years of her life following her brain injury reflected in this story. Although her recuperation entailed tremendous struggle, she discovered unexpected gifts along the way. 

Indeed, there have been blessings over the last four months during the pandemic. My daughter learned to cook, we’ve taken up golf, my husband is home, and I’m writing more. But honestly, I would give them all up in a heartbeat for some peace – a day without fear and uncertainty, for a simple meal with friends talking about nothing in particular. I’d patch up the hole in the jar. I’d fill in the Vav to stand stronger again. I’d gladly fast-forward until the day that we are all vaccinated for Covid-19 – but I can’t. We can’t. All we can do is walk forward with our broken-open hearts and hope that wildflowers will grow beside our path.

In 1945, in a shelter in Cologne where Jews were hidden during the war, American soldiers found this inscription:

I believe in the sun—even when it is not shining.
I believe in God—even when God is silent.
I believe in love—even when it is not apparent.
Inspired by the story of the broken jar, I’ll add:
I believe in sunflowers, even when I can’t see them yet..

Lag Ba’Omer remarks

By Phyllis Zimbler Miller, May 11, 2020

My father, Albert Zimbler, and my mother, Ruth Fishman Zimbler, were born three days apart in 1924 – my father in Chicago and my mother in a small town in Indiana.

They met during WWII when my father was in the U.S. Army Air Forces and my mother was in nurses training at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago.

After the war my father was a CPA in the small town of Elgin, Illinois, where we lived from the time I was six months old and where three younger siblings joined the family.

In the last few years of my father’s life he wrote humorous short stories, many about love and sex. Most of the stories are published in his eight short story books on Amazon. He also taught senior improv and did stand-up comedy.

When he died March 19, three weeks before my parents’ 74^th wedding anniversary, my mother said that she remembered reading in the newspaper about couples married 75 years and she wondered if she’d make it to then. She added, “I almost did.”

The last time I saw my parents Mitch and I were in Chicago in September for our 50^th wedding anniversary. In December although I had plane tickets to see my parents, both of them were sick and I was sick, so my father said they would stay well until my spring visit.

I did have plane tickets for my usual birthday visit in March, but had to cancel because of COVID-19. If not for that, I would have been there for my father’s death in the hospital from sepsis. In a locked-down hospital my brother Jay stayed with my father for four days until he died.

Now my mother is about to start hospice in her senior resident apartment; she is eating very little and is down to 90 pounds.

In honor of both my parents, I’d like to read “180 Years of Advice” – the short words of wisdom that my parents shared with their family on their 90^th birthdays in November 2014.

180 Years of Advice Link opens PDF, or click the image below.

May my father’s memory be for a blessing.

For Emor: The World’s Weirdest Mother’s Day

By Rabbi Ilana Grinblat

Mother’s Day is usually one of our busiest days of the year. We normally have brunch with my mother-in-law and extended family at a restaurant followed by swimming at their home and then dinner with my step-mother and extended family at another restaurant. Sometime over mother’s day weekend, I like to stop by the beach to enjoy its beauty. This year, since restaurants and the beach are closed and gatherings are forbidden, none of that is possible. Usually today, I would be at stores buying Mother’s Day presents and cards, but I doubt my mother figures would want me to risk my life to purchase gifts. I’m racking my mind to think of some joyful activity to celebrate Mother’s Day, but everything I can think of is not an option this weekend.

This Mother’s Day reminds me what a painful time this is, and I’m not alone. My mother died a few days before Mother’s Day eleven years ago, so I know Sunday will be particularly painful for all those who lost mothers or grandmothers to Covid-19 or other diseases in recent months. Surely many mothers and grandmothers are battling the disease right now – both the mothers who are fighting Covid-19 for their own life and those helping others on the front lines, including doctors, nurses, grocery clerks, and more. For healthy mothers throughout the country, this Mother’s Day will be a sad reminder that Covid-19 precautions preclude spending physical in-person time with their children and grandchildren. Many hugs and kisses will be missed.

This week’s Torah portion begins with a painful conflict between ritual and personal loss. The parasha, called Emor (Speak), begins with God instructing Moses to speak to the priests about how to handle this dilemma. The ancient priests who worked in the Temple were supposed to avoid ritual impurity (acquired by coming close to a dead body), but what should a priest do if they lose a loved one? The portion begins with God specifying that the priest should nevertheless make an exception for “his closest relatives: his mother, and father, son, daughter, brother, or sister.” In this conflict between work and family, the Torah says: family comes first.

Oddly, the priest’s wife doesn’t appear on the list, but the rabbis of the Talmud clarified that the phrase “his closest relatives” surely refers to her, too. In reading this passage, I was struck by the idea that the person he was presumably closest to — his wife — wasn’t mentioned explicitly but was taken as a given.

This textual omission reflects a tendency in life. In our busyness with the smaller things in life, we take the most important things for granted. I’ve often felt this way about Mother’s Day. To honor mothers, we create an event and we often focus on the restaurant, the gifts, and the flowers, but the true, spiritual lesson of motherhood is precisely the opposite. Motherhood is really about appreciating the non-events of life – the mundane moments which small children particularly relish. Kids often teach adults how to find joy in simple activities (like errands) that adults might otherwise find boring.

At its heart, parenthood is really about sacrificing one’s short-term, personal pleasures (like sleep) for the long-term health and happiness of one’s family. Indeed, this Mother’s Day, mothers throughout the world are forfeiting their celebrations for the safety of their families and others. In that sense, even without the flowers and fancy meals, this just might be the truest Mother’s Day of all.

Eighth Day Passover

By Bob Braun, 5780

A couple of months ago I asked our intrepid drasha coordinators if it were possible to give a drasha on Pesach. My children would be in town, and I thought it would be an opportunity to show off, and after a certain amount of negotiation, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity. Of course, it turned out to be the day after the holiday, which commonly referred to as the 8^th day of Pesach.

I had a plan for the drasha, but since that time, the world has, as we all know, turned upside down. People desire people – even as we complain about it – and our desire to be with our family and friends grows during this holiday, when our family tables swell. And, of course, our desire to be with each other is magnified when we face adversity. It is an ironic turn that, at the very time we would like to be together and face this pandemic that we are prevented from doing so. As I think back of the adversities I have faced in my life – and I am so fortunate to have faced very few – I have always sought my family and friends for comfort and support. And while we all try to reach out to each other, make our concerns and affections known, even seeing each other from six feet away cannot take the place of an arm around the shoulders, a true face-to-face conversation.

So it is somewhat surprising that when I looked at my original notes for my drasha, they seemed to be appropriate for this day, and for what we face ahead.

As we know from the Haggadah, the Seder is a process and an evolution. During the arc of the Seder itself, we chart the transformation of our ancestors from enslavement to freedom, and transform ourselves from slaves to free people. And during the 7 days of Passover, the arc becomes more pronounced; as we live this special life without leaven, as we read Hallel daily, as we remove ourselves from at least some of our daily routines and adopt the habits of Pesach, we also find ourselves changed. The constant knowledge of the holiday changes our outlook, even as we look forward to the first piece of pizza at or about 8:10 pm on Thursday.

The transformation does not end, however, on Thursday evening. As you all know, beginning on the second night of Pesach, toward the end of the second seder, we begin the counting of the Omer, and that is what I intended to talk about a couple of months ago.

The Omer has a number of characteristics and meanings ascribed to it. As my cousin-in-law, an Iraqi kibbutznik, told me very matter of factly, it’s simple; it takes seven weeks for the grains to ripen, and we’re just counting. And it is true that the first harvest is concurrent with the length of the Omer. In fact, the harvests of Pesach and Shavuot are connected: the harvest of Pesach is the initial, lesser harvest; the harvest of Shavuot is the culmination and the greater harvest, the one that we depend upon.

But we also ascribe a great deal of mystical significance to the counting of the Omer. To count the Omer daily is considered an act of devotion and piety – although, since it’s pretty easy to download an omer counter on your smart phone, I’m not sure that it’s much of an accomplishment.

But what is more interesting are the customs associated with the Omer. During Sefirat HaOmer, we assume a form of gloom, acting as if we are in morning. This is attributed to the story that, during Sefirat HaOmer, 12,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s disciples died because they did not treat each other with respect, and we mourn today, both their death, and the reason for it.

But according to Adin Steinsaltz, the customs are not rooted in mourning, but in the need to prepare ourselves spiritually for the acceptance of Torah on Shavuot. We aren’t mourning so much as we are avoiding distractions, like getting a haircut, or shaving, or getting married, because of our focus on the further development of our spiritual lives for giving of the Torah at Sinai. The days between Pesach and Shavuot are an interim period, a period of our own internal change so that, at the end of the 7 weeks, we have achieved a different level of sanctity and purity.

In this way, Shavuot is the culmination of Pesach, and what gives meaning to Pesach. Freedom, alone, does not have meaning unless it is coupled with values. Were freedom the only goal of Y’tziyat Mitzrayim, we would be in anarchy; it is the combination of freedom and acceptance of Torah that creates something greater. It is Torah, combined with freedom, that creates the Jewish people. We can see this in the kavanah we read each day after counting the Omer:

By the merit of Sefirat HaOmer which I counted today, may whatever I have impaired in the serifa be rectified. May I be purified and sanctified with the heavenly holiness, and through this may a beneficent outpouring be effected in all worlds, to refine our lives and spirits so that they are free of defect, purifying us and sanctifying us with God’s holiness.

We are also in period of transition today. The difference is that we, like the Israelites who left Egypt, do not know whether this will last for six weeks – well, at least six weeks – or 8 weeks or 12 weeks or more. We do not know when or how we will emerge, and what we will discover. In so many ways, we are like the Jews in that first Sefirat HaOmer, heading on an uncertain course to an uncertain future.

And we are most certainly displaying the signs of mourning. Even as we seek to create a normalcy in these times, to reach out to one another, to meet at a distance, we are not celebrating weddings, B’nai mitzvot, birthdays. We are not commemorating even the sober reminders of our time – funerals without shiva, Yizkor without a minyan. We are living in a time that is unique from any other time. While we always are making the history of the world, this time, like the Israelites leaving Egypt, we are aware that we are living in history, that what we do, how we react to this world-wide, ubiquitous and universal disaster, will define us.

There are no answers, at least that I have. Tomorrow may find a vaccine, or treatment, or other event that allows us to return to the world we knew — although it is much more likely that are lives are, irrevocably, changed. But during the next six weeks, at least, let us consider the lessons of Sefirat Omer and consider how we can sanctify ourselves, so that when this period does end, we will be better people for it.

Vayikra  

By Rabbi Gordon Bernat-Kunin, 3/27/2020

For some people, picking out the right gift is excruciating.  This may be why my wife wisely chose her own engagement ring. We have never gone on a trip which did not require an obligatory visit on her part to the tchotchke store in pursuit of the perfect gift for family and friends. To save time, I sometimes suggest a gift card or Venmo. To no avail.  In my worst moments, I protest that in essence this practice of exchanging gifts among a circle of friends is essentially shopping for oneself. As you can imagine, my heartfelt remonstrations always miss the mark.

As we begin the Book of Vayikra, I want to share wisdom from two of my favorite teachers–Moshe Halbertal and Martin Buber.  In his slim, exquisite work On Sacrifice (2012), Moshe Halbertal focuses on the anxiety and danger of offering gifts. Halbertal notes how it would be unseemly for a guest to bring “a sum of money equivalent to the giver’s estimation of the cost of the meal.” (26) “In bringing an object rather than cash to a dinner party…the giver (read: my wife, not me) expresses her attentiveness to the recipients tastes, which is the ultimate mark of care.”  (27) 

Halbertal begins with the Torah’s first account of an offering or minchah in the story of Cain and Abel.  

Abel became a keeper of sheep, and Cain became a tiller of the soil. In the course of time, Cain brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the soil; and Abel, for his part, brought the choicest of the firstlings of his flock. The LORD paid heed to Abel and his offering, but to Cain and his offering He paid no heed. Cain was much distressed and his face fell. (Gen. 4: 2-5)

He notes how “the story stresses the expectation of the giver that his sacrifice be accepted, and the utter devastation that results from its rejection.” (8)  Surveying the commentaries, he notes that despite so many attempts, the question of “why Cain’s offering was refused is a mystery.” (9) He can see no “substantive reason” why Abel’s sacrifice is chosen over Cain’s.  The term minchah, an offering from one who is less powerful to one who is more powerful is connected to the anxiety of offering a sacrifice. The possibility of rejection is deeply connected to both trauma and violence.

When one thinks of the extraordinary detail of the various sacrifices found in our Torah portion, one can understand Halbertal’s argument that “adherence to detailed routine makes the passage from laying down [offering] to acceptance less fraught.  Ritual is thus a protocol that protects from the risk of rejection.” Like legal systems, ritual “imposes order while confronting the unreliability and capriciousness of emotional responses.” (15)

While ritual has the benefit of reducing anxiety and danger and enhancing safety, predictability, and control, other dangers emerge.  Ritual can turn into magic or manipulation of God, i.e., if you perform the proper steps in the proper order at the proper time, all will be well.  While sacrificial offerings are meant to bring the practitioner closer to God, the opposite may result. By closing “the gap between giving and receiving, thereby ensuring acceptance of the gift and leaving nothing voluntary to the recipient,” the result Halbertal notes “ is the exact opposite of intimacy.” (18)  

Given my anxiety that this offering or drash will not be accepted when my virtual 10-12 minutes are up, let me close with a few applications of Halbertal’s understanding of the anxiety of offering to other realms.  

God and Humans

We can apply Halbertal’s analysis of the danger of human offerings to God to the danger of God’s offerings to humans.  Halbertal compares God’s dilemma to what he calls the “rich husband syndrome.” How does the most powerful actor in the world know that (S)he is loved?  In Halbertal’s account, both the stories of Job and Abraham in the Akedah can be seen as tests of loyalty in which God needs proof that God is loved not instrumentally but for Godself.  From another perspective, we could ask: when God offers God’s greatest gifts to humanity and the Jewish people–life, free will, covenant–we can only imagine God’s anxiety if these gifts are not received or used well. When the human partner rejects God’s gifts (through ingratitude or disloyalty), God responds with rage and violence–destroying humanity with the Flood or threatening to destroy the Jewish people after building the Golden Calf.  

Buber’s account of Religion and Religiosity

Halbertal observes how the predictability of both ritual and law serve to make the world a more stable place.  We can compare Halbertal’s account of ritual as a response to the anxiety of bringing offerings to Buber’s contrast between religion and religiosity.  For Buber, religiosity is “man’s sense of wonder and adoration, an ever anew becoming, an ever anew articulation and formulation of his feeling that, transcending his conditioned being yet bursting from its very core, there is something that is unconditioned.”  Religion, by contrast, constitutes laws and customs, rites and dogmas which become ossified and unalterably binding. Buber’s fear is that religion (like ritual) instead of coexisting in dynamic tension with religiosity, will mobilize its endless rules and procedures to enslave and destroy living religiosity.   

Interpersonal Relationships:  Buber’s I-It and I-You

In his work I and Thou, Buber echoes this idea of religion and religiosity and addresses the anxiety of risking I-You relationships.  He describes how I-It relationships are orderly, instrumental, controlled. “The It-word hangs together in space and time. The You-word does not hang together in space and time.” I-It relationships, like Halbertal’s account of ritual, provide comfort, continuity, consistency and predictability.  In contrast, I-You moments require presence, participation of one’s whole being, mutuality, and openness. They “appear as queer lyric-dramatic episodes. Their spell may be seductive, but they pull us dangerously to extremes, loosening the well-tried structure, leaving behind more doubt than satisfaction, shaking up our security – altogether uncanny, altogether indispensable.” 

Buber concludes Part 1 of I and Thou:  “And in all the seriousness of truth, listen: without It a human being cannot live.  But whoever lives only with that is not human.”

Without I-It, we lack structure and order, mastery, predictability and responsibility.  We lack the means to overcome the fear and anxiety of our natural dependency. In Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s words:  “Human existence is a dignified one because it is a glorious, majestic, powerful existence…Man of old who could not fight disease and succumbed in multitudes to yellow fever or any other plague with degrading helplessness could not lay claim to dignity.  Only the man who builds hospitals, discovers therapeutic techniques and saves lives is blessed with dignity…” ( “The Lonely Man of Faith”)

And, at the same time, there is another equally urgent demand:  the longing for I-You relationships.

In The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:  “To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks.  The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time.  There is a realm where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.  Life goes wrong when control of space, the acquisition of things in space, becomes our sole concern.”

May we support one another in today’s demand for building reliability, mastery and responsibility.  May we have the courage to respond to Heschel’s call to face sacred moments together.

Shabbat Shalom

T’rumah

By Larry Herman, February 29, 2020

What’s Your Mishkan?

Shabbat Shalom.

Did you listen to the Torah reading today? Or perhaps read it? At least the forty verses that we chanted? Don’t worry if you missed the other 56 verses; it’s more of the same.

What’s going on here?

It’s actually quite simple. God is giving Moses the blueprint for the architecture and interior design of the Mikdash or Mishkan.

Commentators and scholars have a lot to say about the differences between Mikdash and Mishkan.

Mikdash emphasizes the place of holiness, coming from the root kodesh, while the Mishkan calls to mind dwelling, coming from the root shachen which means to dwell.

But I’m not particularly concerned about the difference, especially since in our parsha, the term mikdash is only used once while Mishkan is used 19 times. God is instructing Moses to tell the people how to build the special space where they will gather and serve God. The space where they will fulfill their obligations as a people, affirm their commitments as Hebrews, and perhaps we can even project a bit and say reinforce their identities as Jews.

וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם׃

And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

God wants to be with the people, and the people to be with God.

And there are a lot of instructions for what the place must be.

First comes the materials list in the first seven verses. No quantities attached, but the list seems pretty complete.

1. Gold
2. Silver
3. Copper
4. Blue Yarn
5. Purple Yarn
6. Crimson Yarn
7. Fine Linen
8. Goats’ Hair
9. Tanned Ram Skins
10. Dolphin Skins
11. Acacia Wood
12. Oil
13. Spices
14. Lapis Lazuli
15. Other Stones

And then follows a verbal description of how the materials are to be assembled.

Altogether in our Parsha, by my count, God gives Moses the plans and designs for 18 separate components of the Mishkan:

1. Ark
2. Ark Poles
3. Cover
4. Cherubim
5. Table
6. Table Poles
7. Receptacles: Bowls, ladles, jars & jugs
8. Lampstand
9. Cloth enclosure
10. Planks
11. Curtain
12. Screen
13. Alter
14. Grill accessories: Pails, scrapers, basins, flesh hooks and fire pans
15. Grating
16. Alter poles
17. Hangings
18. Gate

But there is a very interesting verse that precedes the written description of each component:

כְּכֹ֗ל אֲשֶׁ֤ר אֲנִי֙ מַרְאֶ֣ה אוֹתְךָ֔ אֵ֚ת תַּבְנִ֣ית הַמִּשְׁכָּ֔ן וְאֵ֖ת תַּבְנִ֣ית כָּל־כֵּלָ֑יו וְכֵ֖ן תַּעֲשֽׂוּ׃

Exactly as I show you—the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings—so shall you make it.

Note that God does not say “exactly as I tell you” or “explain to you” but rather that he is actually showing Moses the plan, the blueprint, the design.

In fact, in the final verse of the chapter, and the final verse that we read today, God basically repeats that:

וּרְאֵ֖ה וַעֲשֵׂ֑ה בְּתַ֨בְנִיתָ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־אַתָּ֥ה מָרְאֶ֖ה בָּהָֽר׃

Note well, and follow the patterns for them that are being shown you on the mountain.

It’s as though God is projecting an image or hologram on the mountain for Moses to actually be able to visualize the Mishkan. In fact, in verse 30 of Chapter 26 God tells Moses, “Then set up the Tabernacle according to the manner of it that you were shown on the mountain.”

Note that in our parsha Moses is only given the plans for the Mishkan. It’s not until parshat Va’yak’Hel in three weeks that it is actually constructed.

Let me ask you all a question: In hearing or reading the parsha, do you have a good idea of what the Mishkan was supposed to look like?

Do you have any idea of what it was supposed to look like?

Not me. I’m not an engineer or architect, but I can read simple building plans (at least for roads) and visualize them. But I really need that projection against the mountain that God showed to Moses.

We don’t have a Mishkan anymore. We haven’t for almost three thousand years, or perhaps two thousand years if you consider the Temple the Mishkan.

So what’s your Mishkan?

What’s the place where you are with God and God is with you?

What’s the place where you serve God?

The place where you fulfill your obligations, affirm your commitments and reinforce your identity as a Jew?

Is it here in Dorff Nelson?

Upstairs in the new Ganzberg Sanctuary?

Daily in Pilch Hall?

Is it all of those, any of those, or none of those?

Perhaps it’s not in a synagogue at all.

It could be a place of Jewish study, Jewish Center, or Labor Zionist Hall.

Perhaps it’s not one place or space but several.

Or perhaps it’s not a place at all, but rather an association or movement. A space where Jews come together to be with God and affirm their commitments as Jews.

A goodly number of our regulars are missing today, gathered in Washington for the AIPAC meetings. Maybe that place is their Mishkan or one of their Mishkans.

Perhaps one of your Jewish identities is an obligation to remember the Holocaust and honor its victims. Then Yad VaShem, the many Holocaust museums and memorials, and spaces where the Holocaust is remembered and studied may be a Mishkan for you; or rather for all of us.

All of these are possible. These places may not resemble the literal description or plan that we read today, and I seriously doubt if any of them contain any dolphin skins. But they are all possible spaces for some form of sanctity – Mikdash – and Jewish gathering and dwelling – Mishkan.

Spaces where we are moved to bring gifts, each and every one of us, as our hearts move us. Even if those gifts are time, our presence and our participation.

I have such a place, even though I’ve only been there twice. It’s the annual festival and celebration of almost all things Jewish that takes place in England.

Limmud.

Most of you know about it. Many of you have actually participated in it, either in England or in one of the Limmud satellites around the world.

In England it’s six days of wall-to-wall nonstop immersion in Judaism and Jewishness. This year it attracted almost three thousand participants, included five hundred presenters, one thousand separate sessions, and myriad opportunities to find your version of the Mishkan.

• You want to pray? There were Orthodox, Sephardi/Mizrachi, Egalitarian, Partnership, Progressive/Reform, Family, and Meditation minyans, most of them three times daily.
• You want serious traditional Jewish study: There were dozens of sessions, many led by renowned scholars, plus a non-stop Beit Midrash.
• What kind of learning or experiences would you like? The list of categories barely captures the breadth and depth of what’s available:
  • Torah and Philosophy
  • Wellbeing and Spirituality
  • Arts and Culture
  • History and Politics
  • Modern Society and Social Change
  • Social Programming
  • Science and Technology
  • Performance
  • Shabbat and Chanukah
  • Family, Youth and Teen, and
  • Other

There were a series of sessions that dealt with environmental matters and naturally a large number of politically oriented sessions: plenty to both interest and outrage almost anyone at the same time. Sessions on Shtisel and lots of sessions that dealt with food.

I wish that I had the time to tell you about all of the fantastic sessions that I attended. Here are just a few:

• I attended a Shabbat session on whisky given by an orthodox rabbi, complete with tasting.
• And another session that presented an eye-opening history of Jews and booze.
• Diane and I learned to dance Salsa at a session given by a Cambridge University biologist who also gave a session on the role of evolutionary biology on peace and cooperation.
• We attended a rugelach-making session that had to deal with disaster when the bowl with the dough smashed on the floor.
• An Oxford University professor of Medicine and amateur comic gave a three-part lecture entitled “Do our Genes Make us Jewish” that was so informative, entertaining and just wonderful that the rooms could not contain the throngs who came to see him.
• I reconnected with a young man who used to live in Maputo.
• Diane and I attended sessions and had lunch with the developer of Sefaria.
• I studied Psalm 30, which I recite daily, with a dynamic young rabbi, and it has changed the way I relate to it.

I can honestly say that some of the sessions and experiences were life changing.

Two sessions on Tahara, the ritual cleansing of a Jewish corpse, and Hevrei Kadisha have rekindled my commitment to organize a lay Hevra Kadisha in our community. (Fortuitously, this coincides with just such an endeavor led by our clergy.)

• I have been inspired to become more proficient in using Sefaria so that I can share that knowledge with others.
• A session on the Musar movement and anger management is helping me get through this political cycle, at least I hope so.
• But most of all, a pair of shi’urim by Rabbi Joel Levy, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, has perhaps, maybe, I’m not yet sure, changed the way I think about God.

At least it’s changed the way that I think about revelation, about text, and about narrative and experience versus writing and analytical thought.

In truth, this what I had intended to talk about all along. Rabbi Levy’s sessions were entitled “The Alphabetic Mind” based on a 1986 article of the same name by Eric Havelock. As far as I can tell, Rabbi Levy has not yet published on the topic yet. And I am not capable of doing justice to scholarship that he brought to the subject. To briefly quote him,

Writing was only invented a few thousand years ago… Judaism soon became a distinctly bookish tradition. … How was religion changed by the new technology of writing? ….how [have] early rabbinic traditions understood, conceptualized and prioritized the differences between Judaism’s spoken and written traditions.

Reading the written word is not only different from hearing, seeing and experiencing the same events and ideas, it also involves very different modes of thinking and understanding.

There is an irony in the way that we Jews have chosen to deal with our oral and written traditions. On the one hand, we have the Torah she-bi-khtav, the written Torah, and Torah she-be-`al peh, the Oral Law. But we are actually commanded to hear, not read, the written Torah, and we have not only written down the Oral law, but our homes, beitei midrash, and libraries are chock-a-block full of written commentaries on the whole of Torah. The transmission process that was once dynamic and experiential quickly became rigidified and analytical. It changed the way that we relate to Torah, to law, to history, to God, and to revelation.

I want to take you back to our parsha one more time. I know that it’s easy to forget, but what has just happened is that the people had heard the pronouncement of the Aseret Hadirbrot in a fantastic display of sound, visual effects and other physical sensations. Then Moses ascends the mountain to receive and presumably transcribe, that is, write, the rest of the law. The laws we read last week in Mishpatim, the laws of the Mishkan in T’rumah this week, the laws of the priests, their clothing and sacrifices next week in T’tzaveh, up to the moment in Ki Tissa when Moses descends with the written tablets. Objects, not experiences.

But clearly in our story, God did more than just hand Moses the equivalent of a book. We’ve already seen that he prepared something like of a hologram or Power Point presentation to show him what the Mishkan should look like.

Imagine now, when Moses descends and presents the tablets to the people and says, “This is the word of the Lord.”

The people would laugh at him. They would say, “Moses, we saw and heard and felt the word of the Lord at Sinai, and believe us, those tablets aren’t it.”

It would be as if God had performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, complete with celestial orchestra, choir, light show and more. And forty days later Moses comes down from the mountain with the written musical score and says, “This is what you heard.” The people would look at the squiggles on the page and say, “what the heck is that? It’s not what we heard and saw.”

And when Moses presents the plans for the Mishkan to Betzalel, I wonder if Betzalel didn’t respond, “Why don’t you just show me what the Lord showed you.”

The alphabetic mind, the mind that reads and writes, is a mind that is limited and locked in. The narrative and experiential mind is the mind that’s open to wonders and novelty. It doesn’t let the words get in the way of the ideas or experiences.

So what is your Mishkan? Does your Mishkan follow the literal plan described in the words of our parsha? Or do you try to imagine what gifts your heart moves you to bring in order to create a Mishkan beyond the words, a sacred place where you can dwell with the Devine, and where you can fulfill your commitments, obligations and identity as a Jew?

Shabbat Shalom.

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