Parashat Yitro: RIP Carol Channing

    Shabbat Shalom. Last week, Broadway icon Carol Channing died. My first Broadway show was Hello, Dolly! when I was about 7 years old. Channing already seemed ancient to me then, but she went on to play Dolly Levi for several more years. I remember how the red upholstery in the theatre matched that of the Harmonia Gardens scene and how elegant everything felt. I remember Channing stuffing dinner rolls in her face at impressive speeds at the end of the Harmonia Gardens scene when everyone has discovered each other and her plottings. I guess mostly I just remember the Harmonia Gardens scene. My memories of the rest of the show are obscured by time and many, many viewings of the Barbra Streisand movie version.

    If you don’t know the show, Hello, Dolly! is based on a Thornton Wilder play called The Matchmaker, which itself was based on other plays with similar themes, including an earlier and shorter version also by Wilder called The Merchant of Yonkers. Dolly Levi, widow of Ephraim Levi, works as a matchmaker, though it is a bit unclear if she was doing that while Ephraim was alive. She is about middle-age, an age which is a bit of a moving target for a story that is nearing 200 years old. I assume what was considered “middle age” when the original one-act farce was written in 1835 is a different age than now, and at each iteration of the story since then the authors and casting directors probably had a different age or look in mind for the part of Dolly. But whatever the number, she is at a point in her life where she feels it is time to remarry. She is a fiercely independent woman, but even the updated versions of Hello, Dolly! seem to take place in Wilder’s era of the early 20th century. The movie, made in the mid-1960’s, depicts horse and buggies and only a few early Ford vehicles on the road. So, independent soul though she is, she is still living in an era where some dependence on men was necessary for women to move safely through the world. I’m sure Tzipporah can relate, in this week’s Torah portion, as her father and husband discuss the fate of hundreds of thousands of people without her input, including such details as where she resides during the tumultuous transition out of Egypt.

    Anyway, Dolly is hired to find a wife for wealthy widower Horace Vandergelder, and she decides he should marry her. But she can’t come right out and say that, because she’s been hired to find him someone else, and also she doesn’t quite fit his absurd list of requirements. Today’s Millionaire Matchmaker, Patty Stanger, would tell him to stop being a Man-Baby and shift his expectations, but Dolly knows she has to be softer in her approach, and let him come to his own realization about his hopes for the ideal woman. So she sets up a series of events, which of course unfold in musical hilarity, to set herself up with Horace, ensure Horace’s niece gets to marry her love whom Horace disapproves of, and set up Horace’s two employees to also find love and a fun night out in an era before labor laws.

    None of the versions of the story, to my knowledge, explicitly name Dolly as a Jewish woman. My sibling and I once argued about this, and whether I just think of her as Jewish because Babs played her in the movie. But, let’s look at the evidence. Her last name is Levi. Her husband’s name was Ephraim, one of the tribes of Israel. She is a matchmaker, a yente. She is a strong woman who knows how to play nice alongside patriarchy and still get her way in the end. If that doesn’t describe half the women in the Talmud, I don’t know what does! Granted, there aren’t many women in the Talmud. The show is mostly a silly story of mishaps and coincidences leading to perfect love-matches, without a lot of deeper substance or commentary on morality. But I do see Dolly as a character that can be a role model. She’s so easy-going yet assertive. Clever, but knows when to hold back her thoughts. Intensely loving even after loss, and looking to share love and wealth. Knows the importance of Tzedakah and equality (“Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow.”). She could teach all of us a thing or two about embodying the values of our Torah and tradition.

Perhaps talking about Broadway musicals would have been more appropriate last week, in the immediate aftermath of her death and in conjunction with Shabbat Shira, when our Torah and Haftarah portions are almost entirely about specified songs. But sometimes ideas need time to simmer. And, as I’ve said before in various contexts, there is much more music to be gleaned from our sacred texts than just where we are told something is explicitly a song. This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Yitro, tells us that as the Israelites prepared to accept the Ten Commandments, there was a loud blast of a horn and “All the people saw the voices” (20:15). Rashi explains further, “They saw what is ordinarily heard, and they heard what is ordinarily seen.” That sounds to me like the kind of deeply spiritual experience caused by moving music, like an empowering musical. I thought of this line in the parasha when I saw this picture with the caption "When it’s cold you can see the song":

shared on Facebook this week. If your heart is open, you can see the song. When the music moves you, when you are experiencing some kind of Divine revelation, you can see the song. When Dolly Levi sings “Before the Parade Passes By” and lets the audience in on her inner thoughts behind all her clever manipulations, and your heart swells with empathy, and you think to yourself, YES, I have a goal and a drive and can feel my heart coming alive, you can see the song. Or at least, I can. I hope you at least have a comparable analogy for what makes your heart swell and give you synesthetic joy and connection to the Divine if musical theater and imagining the revelation of the 10 Commandments as the climax song in a play isn’t quite your thing.

May the memory of Carol Channing be for a blessing. May her own playful spirit remain with us on Earth. May we find the music the moves our soul, that motivates us to commit our lives to something bigger than ourselves. May we do and hear all that we are commanded to, and bring about a better world in song. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Beshallach - Family Services

 

Shabbat Shalom! In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Beshallach, the Israelites finally escape from Pharaoh, escape from the threat of the plagues, escaped from slavery, escaped from Egypt. Before setting out on their way, Moses had to go grab the bones of Joseph, which sent him off on a bit of an adventure in a very specific direction, according to Midrash, so when he was ready to lead the people all out to freedom, he thought the most convenient way out would be through the marshlands by the Sea of Reeds. Of course, when they got there, they realized they weren’t really sure how to cross the Sea, and just as they were contemplating their options, Pharaoh’s army appeared in the distance behind them, quickly closing in. They had lost their opportunity to find another route, and had to figure out how to get across STAT!

As they faced the Sea, with the army at their backs, they weren’t totally sure what to do until one man began to walk into the sea. Nachshon was Aaron’s brother-in-law, two degrees of separation in Moses’s family. The rabbis say he was a very noble, faithful man, the embodiment of a quiet and supportive leader. Moses stood before the people, waiting for a solution from God, and always had a sort of top down approach to his leadership, even when he does eventually learn to delegate and ask for help. Nachshon just walked right in the water, ready to swim if necessary. He saw the problem ahead of him and decided to just plunge right in anyway. He walked in past his knees, past his chest, all the way up to his nose, almost to the point where he wouldn't be able to breathe if he kept walking. Only then, once he had shown his commitment and people behind him started to follow, did the Sea split and allow the Israelites to walk across to safety on dry land.

There are lots of ways to be a leader and to problem solve. Not all people like a lot of attention, like to speak publicly, or are comfortable telling people what to do. That doesn't mean quiet people, introverts, out-of -the-box thinkers, and others can't also affect great change. One of our earliest rabbis, Shammai, was known to say, “Say little, do much, and greet every person with a smile.” Sometimes it is important to speak out, and there will be the Moseses of the world to take the lead when they are needed. And sometimes it is important to just start doing, and there must also be Nachshons in the world to be willing to take the plunge without needing to consult others.

Whichever type of leader you are, I pray that you find your own strength, your resolve, and your style, to make a difference in this world and know your own importance. May you lead with compassion and resilience, and may you help bring us all closer to peace. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Bo: Collective Punishment

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion, along with much of the first few chapters of Exodus which becomes the Passover story, raises some interesting questions about collective punishment. These questions aren’t new, not for me and certainly not from the perspective of Jewish tradition. But almost every year, I find a new commentary or midrash, or notice a new detail, think of a new angle, that renews these questions. The most burning and consistent question for me as been, “Who exactly experiences the plagues?” This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Bo, chronicles the last three, most horrifying, plagues, and the final tense night for the Israelites in Egypt.

    In the New American Haggadah, children’s author Lemony Snicket offers the following commentary on the Ten Plagues:

It is one of the peculiarities of the Passover story that God sends ten plagues down on all of the Egyptians, not just the ones who were in favor of slavery. It is likely that there were a fair number of Egyptians who said, “I see no reason to detain these Hebrew slaves any longer than we already have,” and who nevertheless found themselves drinking blood instead of water. By the time frogs had hopped through the land, and gnats and flies had stung everything in sight, there were doubtless more Egyptians who said, “You know, I would rather do without slaves than have all of these terrible pests around,” and who still suffered from pestilence and boils. By the time the threats came from the sky—hail, locusts, and darkness—there couldn’t have been too many Egyptians who were in favor of keeping the Jews in bondage, except the stubborn Pharaoh, who only changed his mind when his own son, who by this point was probably an abolitionist—a word which here means “in favor of ending slavery if only because he was sick of plagues”—was slaughtered as part of the tenth and final plague. It is likely that the entire Egyptian nation disagreed with the Pharaoh by that time, and yet it was the entire nation that was punished.

This is not fair, and Jewish tradition has us spill ten drops from the beverage of our choice when naming the plagues, in order to remember the suffering of the Egyptians. Of course, the pain and terror of ten plagues cannot compare with a glass that is slightly less full than it was originally, but tradition dictates that these ten drops are symbolic, a word which here means “a way of expressing how sorry we are about something that happened a long time ago and was not directly our fault.” This symbolism may come in handy, so that some night at dinner you can say, “When I spilled grape juice all over your beautiful white tablecloth, it was not an accident, but my way of apologizing for various terrible things that have happened to innocent people.”

When I read that in April of 2012, it struck me that I really had never considered that innocent Egyptians perhaps were made to suffer by the plagues. I of course knew the famous midrash about the angels dancing after the Israelites cross the parted Sea of Reeds to safety, and God admonishes them for dancing while other children of God die, but I had seen that more as a general concept of God feeling sorrow when people have to die, no matter how deserving or necessary that death. After all, in that scene, we are talking about members of Pharaoh’s army, people actively chasing down the Israelites and who have probably conquered and kill before. But it never occurred to me that some Egyptian civilians who probably had to endure the plague might also be abolitionists, or at least passive supporters of Israelite freedom.

    What I had spent a lot more time wondering was how the Israelites experienced the plagues. We know they must sacrifice a lamb and mark their doorposts to remain safe from the 10th plague, so are we to assume that without instructions to protect themselves, they were vulnerable to the first 9? Or that they were automatically protected from the first 9, but for some reason needed that extra precaution for Plague 10? If they were safe in Goshen, could they see what was happening to the Egyptians? Was it frightening for them?

    We can’t ever know, and the rabbis don’t agree. Since 2012 and getting more intrigued by the questions of who experienced the plagues and who deserved what they experienced, I have read multiple commentaries and midrashim about the Israelites, though none about the potentially innocent Egyptians. Many midrashim do agree that the Israelites were safe from the plagues, and could see what was happening to the Egyptians. Some say that they were only safe in Goshen, but those that served in the palace, had cushy lives, and didn’t want to leave Egypt, were subject to the plagues along with the Egyptians in their shared households. Some say that the Israelites of Goshen sold clean water to the Egyptians during the first plague, balms for the boils and live, sold them produce during the locust invasions, and so on. One modern novel (I hesitate to call it a midrash, as it is written from a fairly Christian perspective) speculates that the non-Israelite slaves (those that leave with the Israelites as the “Mixed Multitudes”) could also be protected from the plagues.

    In looking through the JPS English edition Miqra’ot Gedolot this week, I saw that Bechor Shor, a 12th century French rabbi, commented that when the Torah says, “but all the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings,” it means “In the land of Goshen, but the rest of Egypt was dark, even for the Israelites,” whereas Rashbam a century earlier said, “Even if they dwelled in an Egyptian’s house.” Rashi seems to think that the sinful Israelites who did not want to leave did also have to sit in darkness. However, the righteous Israelites not only had light in their dwellings, whether they dwelled in Goshen or in Rameses, that light went with them as they went out of their dwelling places. Furthermore, the so called righteous used it to go case the homes of the Egyptians so that when God tells them they can take the spoils of Egypt with them when leave, they know exactly what they want and where to find it. Hizkuni, a 13 century rabbi, also adds that Pharaoh believed that the Israelites were subject to the same darkness, did not think to ask Moses for it to be removed, and assumed that even if he allowed Moses to take the Israelites out to worship HaShem, they would not be able to get far due to the darkness.

    It seems that overall, our scholars throughout the ages have shared my curiosity and concern over the collective punishment of the plagues. Although many try to explain them in ways that are most benevolent - only the wicked suffered, the righteous profitted off the suffering of the wicked - it remains ambiguous how our ancient text may have played out and how Moses or others of the time felt about the narrative they were living through. What we can do with this curiosity and concern, however, is to develop modern Jewish values that reject collective punishment, and craft midrashim that help us assert that the future need not reflect the past, that we can move forward in just ways that celebrate the newfound freedom of some without taking away life and liberty from others. Life and liberty here is not to be confused with the privilege to assert dominance over those that are recently liberated. Merely, that it is possible, and it can be congruous with Jewish values, gleaned from the hand-wringing of our rabbis over this week’s Torah portion, to assert a world in which everyone lives with freedom and dignity and equality. May we see that world arise in our lifetimes. Amen and Shabbat Shalom

Parashat VaEra

Shabbat Shalom! It’s nice to be back. In this week’s Torah portion of Parashat Va’era, the plagues of Egypt begin. Moses has spoken to the enslaved people of Israel a couple times, and gone before Pharaoh, and it’s clear he’s going to need some divine intervention to get the Israelites free. But he’s not quite sure that even with Divine intervention, this plan is going to work. Early in the parasha, the Torah tells us: “G‑d spoke to Moses, and said to him: “God spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name HaShem. I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners’” (Exodus 6:2-4).

Commenting on this interesting reintroduction of God to Moses, the Talmud (Sanhedrin 111a) says, “G‑d said to Moses: I regret the loss of those who have passed away and are no longer found. Many times I revealed Myself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; they did not question My ways, nor did they say to me, ‘What is Your name?’ You, on the other hand, asked from the start, ‘What is Your name?’ and now you are saying to Me, ‘You have not saved Your people!’” Rashi expands on this, “You questioned My ways, unlike Abraham, to whom I said, ‘Isaac shall be considered your seed,’ and then I said to him, ‘Raise him up to Me as an offering’—and still he did not question Me.”

Although these quotes point out the potentially contentious nature of the relationship between God and Moses, I find their dynamic actually really interesting and beautiful. In the Torah and especially in many midrashim, God and Moses are constantly challenging each other and calling each other out. They often speak to each other like a married couple and speak of the Children of Israel as if they were literally the children of their union, and disobedient, difficult children at that. Of course, their relationship is by no means that of equals, and Moses still constantly has to pray to God, repent, seek God’s help and mercy, and so on, so maybe not the best model as a whole for how to interact as a married. But the comfort with which Moses feels expressing his real concerns and frustrations with his situation, with the Children of Israel, with God, is an excellent model for a human-Divine relationship.

Even if you don’t believe in the sort of anthropomorphic or direct-action deity shown in the Torah, as many don’t anymore, I think the idea still of accessing a Divine presence and scolding it for an unfair predicament you’re in, while also looking to it for guidance to get out of said predicament, is a totally fair way to engage with the Force of the Universe. It allows for a fair amount of agency and self-reliance, while also allowing for some relief in acknowledging that you can’t account for everything and sometimes crummy situations are going to fall in your lap, and you need someone to blame but it’s clear it’s no person’s fault, so blame God. Or the Universe. Or Murphy’s Law. Whatever you call it, it’s beyond your control and you deserve to shake your first in that general direction.

May you find your voice as Moses does throughout the Torah, may you find comfort in your relationship with the Divine, and may you feel in control of your life in healthy and supported ways. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.