Slight changes for Lech Lecha

Temple Beth Emeth v'Or Progressive Shaari Zedek Saturday Morning "Children's" Service version: 

            In this week’s Torah portion, G-d strikes a covenant with Avram-Avraham to be his Shield and protector, and that of all Avram-Avraham’s children, for eternity. As part of the formation of the covenant, G-d instructs Avram that he and Sarai must change their names to Avraham and Sarah. Now that our first patriarch and matriarch are officially named as such, Avraham and Sarah are promised that they and their seed will inherit the land of Avraham’s sojournings. Avraham is told that G-d’s covenant will continue with him through Yitzchak’s line, but he is reassured that Ishmael will also become a great nation. It is sometimes suspected in the Akidah story, that Yitzchak is the son Avraham truly loves, as it says, “Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Yitzchak, and take him for a burnt offering,” although Midrash tells us that the reason G-d must say “Your son, your only one, whom you love, Yitzchak,” is because in between these lines, are Avraham’s responses we do not get to see, “I have two sons, this is the only son of his mother, and this is the only son of his mother, I love them both, oh okay you mean Yitzchak, why didn’t you just say so?”

Even without this Midrash, Avraham’s concern and love for Ishmael is clear here in Lech-L’cha, and it is obvious that it is important to him that all his seed inherit their fair share of land, and receive their own lives and blessings. When G-d tells Avraham that Sarah will become pregnant and give birth the Yitzchak, Avraham says, “If only that Ishmael should live!” Although he is of course thrilled for his true wife to have a child, he does not want Yitzchak to completely supplant or replace Ishmael. G-d assures Avraham that Ishmael will too be blessed and will also be the father of a great nation, but, the covenant remains with Yitzchak, and with it, the land of Avraham’s sojournings. Surely, though, the great nation of Ishmael must have a place of its own too, nearby enough to visit Grandpa Avraham?

            As descendants of Avraham and Sarah, we have a responsibility, then, to treat one another as brothers and sisters, or at the very least as close cousins. We have the responsibility to respect everyone’s right to their fair share of land and their own lives and blessings. Earlier in the portion, Avraham and Lot realize they are trying to share a plot of land too small to sustain each of their families and herds and all of their households. So, Avraham suggests to Lot that he take his wealth elsewhere; the entire land is before him for his choosing. This shows a keen understanding of natural resources and sustainability, as well as a concern for Shalom in the Home. These days, we have many more people trying to share such resources and the entire land is not before us. Pretty much all inhabitable land is inhabited at this point. As such, the fighting, as with between the herdsmen of Avraham and Lot, continues over these precious resources and land space. Is that how brothers and sisters and cousins should behave? So rather than move to a place that can sustain our individual possessions, or continue fighting, better we should reassess and share those possessions, particularly in the land that Avraham’s descendants were promised.

            May we all find a way to live in harmony with each other and our land, to share our possessions, our precious land and water resources, and behave as if we are all equally children of Abraham and Sarah. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.   

Parashat Lech-Lecha

This is sort of the prototype for this week's d'var Torah, but I wanted to post it as is, and point out that in the future, if I ever have the opportunity to give this in the proper setting, I'm going to Arava it up, add facts and figures of resource scarcity in Israel/Palestine, and how working together on sustainability will bring us to Shalom in the Home(land) between all of us multitude of nations descending from Avraham. 

The version that will be read on Saturday will be posted later in the week. 

            In this week’s Torah portion, G-d strikes a covenant with Avram-Avraham to be his Shield and protector, and that of all Avram-Avraham’s children, for eternity. As part of the formation of the covenant, G-d instructs Avram that he and Sarai must change their names to Avraham and Sarah. Rashi explains a commentary from Genesis Rabbah, to let us know the significance of these changes. The name Avram means “the Father of Aram,” the place the Avram came from. In G-d’s covenant, Avraham is promised to be the father of a multitude of nations, an “Av Hamon,” which looks like something of an acrostic of his name in the scripture, so the hey is added into Avram-Avraham’s name to convey the “hamon” – the multitude of nations – that Avraham is now father to. So with Sarai, the yud or the “eye” sound at the end of her name denotes personal ownership. For Avram, Sarai is “my princess”. Now that she will be the mother of the multitude of nations, she must become Sarah, a princess for any and all.

            Now that our first patriarch and matriarch are officially as such, Avraham and Sarah are promised that they and their seed will inherit the land of Avraham’s sojournings. Avraham is told that G-d’s covenant will continue with him through Yitzchak’s line, but he is reassured that Ishmael will also become a great nation. It is sometimes suspected in the Akidah story, that Yitzchak is the son Avraham truly loves, as it says, “Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Yitzchak, and take him for a burnt offering,” although Midrash tells us that the reason G-d must say “Your son, your only one, whom you love, Yitzchak,” is because in between these lines, are Avraham’s responses we do not get to see, “I have two sons, this is the only son of his mother, and this is the only son of his mother, I love them both, oh okay you mean Yitzchak, why didn’t you just say so?” But without this Midrash Avraham’s concern and love for Ishmael is clear, and it is important to him that all his seed inherit their fair share of land, and receive their own lives and blessings.

            As descendants of Avraham and Sarah, we have a responsibility, then, to treat one another as brothers and sisters, to respect everyone’s right to their fair share of land and their own lives and blessings. Earlier in the portion, Avraham and Lot realize they are trying to share a plot of land too small to sustain each of their families and herds and all of their households. So, Avraham suggests to Lot that he take his wealth elsewhere; the entire land is before him for his choosing. This shows a keen understanding of natural resources and sustainability, but these days, we have many more people trying to share such resources and the entire land is not before us. Pretty much all inhabitable land is inhabited at this point. So rather than move to a place that can sustain our individual possessions, better we should reassess and share those possessions, particularly in the land that Avraham’s descendants were promised.

            May we all find a way to live in harmony with each other and our land, to share our possessions, our precious land and water resources, and behave as if we are all equally children of Abraham and Sarah. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.   

Parashat Noah

            The Tower of Babel was always my favorite Bible story growing up. It’s a funny little story, nestled into Parashat Noah. What I really liked best about it when I was young was how much it was like Greek mythology I learned at school. Even if you think, as many modern progressive Jews today do, that the Bible is essentially a set of myths for our own faith tradition – most of our stories don’t read as “myths” in the same way. Most of the Torah, anyway, if not the whole Bible, explains behavior, the lessons are about morals. They are narratives that we must study and read into in order to get the full meaning of. They make little to no attempt to really explain the unexplainable (or things that were unexplainable at the time, but science has since explained) the way some myths from other traditions did. A lot of myths were as such: “Oh here’s this thing we have; how did it get here?” and then the myth directly explained, we have fire because Prometheus gave it to us, and here’s a whole story about what happened to him for that. Our Torah probably has more in common with ancient, no longer religiously believed mythologies than is obvious at first glance, but generally speaking, I’d say our stories are not like theirs. Except Babel. Here’s a story that tells us [Dramatic Reading]: The entire world spoke one language, but they used their common tongue for a terrible arrogant deed, and so they were punished with babble and forced to disperse, and thus to this very day different languages are spoken across the world, and that place was called Babel! [End Dramatic Reading]

            So then, if generally our stories are meant to be about moral lessons, and here we have this anomalously straightforward factual explanation of language, what are we to take away from this? The Torah says, “And so, the whole world was of one language and uniform words.” Genesis Rabbah offers a few examples of what those “uniform words” might have been, but the point of all of the examples are that “uniform words” meant that not only were all the people of the world speaking the same language, but they used that language to articulate the same idea: to build a tower so high it would reach the heavens and they would all make a name for themselves. This was not the crazy idea of one egomaniac that others followed, this was a plan everyone was in on. Unfortunately, it was an ill-conceived plan for self-serving, fame-mongering reasons, and potentially also with the intent of overthrowing and replacing G-d with themselves, according to one Midrash on “uniform words”. 

            People need to be able to communicate and work together for society to function. However, sometimes we have to work with people who speak a different language, via an interpreter. Sometimes we work with people who speak our language, but as a secondary learned language, rather than a naturally absorbed first language, and so there may still be complications with the translation. And sometimes, even when we work with people who do speak our language just as well as we do, they have a different point of view, and so communication is difficult in a different way. If we give in to how difficult it is, the project won’t get done well, and we will make ourselves crazy! If we learn to work effectively and patiently with those different from us, anything is possible. Working on a school project with someone who has a different vision? Talk it out, work through why you don’t like their way – respectively – and maybe you will come to a compromise, or an entirely new idea that the two of you came up with together, and there is the great possibility that it will be worlds better than your first idea. Not because your first idea was bad, but because you were given the opportunity to see it through various lenses, and allow it to evolve. On a much bigger scale, if everyone were able to do this, than we would have world peace.

            But not everyone is able to do this. And when we all share one idea, are of “uniform words,” who will speak out and say, “Hey, let’s not build this tower or we might end up confused and lonely”? It’s not always easy to be the one to speak out, but it’s important. And when it is our own idea being spoken against, it is just as important to listen, and just as hard. But we can all learn from our mythic ancestors who had no one to hold a contrary view, that they can indeed be really useful, no matter how hard. Regardless of what language – whether it is the literal language of their tongues or the ideological language of their hearts – anyone speaks, may we all find a way to still communicate and work alongside them as equals, in order that we may always have someone to tell us when we’re being fools. Amen. 

Parashat Bereishit

10/13/2012

            There’s a popular video now on YouTube called “First World Problems Anthem.” It’s put out by WaterisLife.com, is a collection of people in third world countries reciting complaints often heard here in America, and is meant to remind us how dumb and ungrateful we often are, in the hopes of encouraging us to donate toward clean water resources for these people with real problems. Some of the people in the video are smiling or look bored, although I can’t tell if it’s because they are truly appreciating the irony or if it’s because they don’t understand the English, but there is one woman in particular who looks like she understands the irony and hates us for it, as she recites the line, “I hate when my neighbors block their Wifi.” The look on her face, the disgust or despair that this is even a sentence, is very sobering.

            This is not to say that there is no such thing as a real problem in the first world, but so often we do take for granted so much of what we have, without considering how or why it exists for us.  This week, since we are reading B’reishit, let’s take a minute and reflect on creation. Whether you believe that creation was a completely random act of particle explosion, or carefully formed by G-d, or some combination of the two, believing in science being dictated by Divine Intelligence, none of it is really about us. In the Torah, G-d creates heavens and earth, separates light from darkness, separates water from dry land, creates the sun, moon, and stars, and creates vegetation, then animals, and lastly humans. At no point does the Torah say, “And G-d saw that this would be good for humans.” It just says, “And G-d saw that this was good.” The Torah does not even say this about humans, really. After most creations, G-d acknowledges their goodness: 4. And God saw the light that it was good, 10. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters seas, and God saw that it was good, 12. And the earth gave forth vegetation, seed yielding herbs according to its kind, and trees producing fruit, in which its seed is found, according to its kind, and God saw that it was good, etc. After creating humans, G-d blessed them, instructed them to watch over everything else, to be fruitful and multiply, and then G-d steps back and 31. And God saw all that G-d had made, and behold it was very good. There’s another whole d’var Torah on why G-d did not say that the creation of humans was good by itself, but for now let’s just focus on the fact that clearly, the universe is not all about us. It’s not all about us as humans, and it is certainly not all about us in the first world and our problems such as “I hate when I ask for no pickles, and they still give me pickles.”

            According to the Talmud (Chulin 60b), we’re not alone in our whining. When G-d created the great luminaries, initially the sun and moon were the same size, but the Moon said, “Can two kings wear the same crown?” And G-d saw that the moon was right, so G-d made the Moon smaller and left the sun to brighten our days. Rashi expands this Talmudic idea, by explaining that because the moon was upset to have to be the one to diminish, G-d created the stars to be its entourage. My first world guilt is comforted by this story. We all may complain about silly things, and need to have our egos diminished or have things put into perspective, but when that happens we may be compensated with more friends and brighter surroundings. May we focus on the positive, appreciate all that we have, and try to help others access essential creations, such as food and water, so that we can all have a better world. And may G-d see that this is very good. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

             

ha'avinu

I spent about six hours yesterday helping my brother clean his apartment. He’s in the process of moving to Colorado, and needed help clearing out years of accumulated house goods in order to be able to move with as little as possible. As we were cleaning, we put on a CD by our favorite band, The Eels. They’re a strange alternative rock band and few of their songs are what you might call upbeat. This particular album we put on while cleaning, their first ever produced, is not as dark as their second, which happened to be our introduction to the band. Still, though, it is called “Beautiful Freak,” so it’s clearly not exactly standard love songs.

Our mom worries about our shared penchant for sad songs, or at least songs she frets will foster sadness in us or distort our views of life. Life, she says, is full of sadness and happiness. There are weird moments, and beautiful moments, and bittersweet moments, and our choices of art and entertainment should reflect that.

This week’s Torah portion is a song or at least poem (we’ve long since lost the tune), that encompasses all of that. It starts out powerful and pleasing declaring both the heavens and the earth should listen to this awesome song about to come forth. “My lesson will drip like rain, my word will flow like dew, like storm winds on vegetation, and like raindrops on grass” (32:2)– such imagery and mastery commanded with those words!

And then it gets dark. Actually, most of the parasha is pretty dark. G-d, through Moses’s voice, scolds the Israelites for all the ingratitude they showed and the faith they didn’t show while traveling through the wilderness. Verse five states that destruction is not of G-d, but man. Humans alone cause corruption and blemish upon the earth. Verses seven through thirteen get bittersweet as G-d recounts all the greatness bestowed upon our ancestors, things they should have been more grateful for.

But then it gets harsh again, which is still beautiful in its way, since it’s written poetically and the meanness of it is fully justified. The Israelites were totally ungrateful and did have a complete lack of faith. Whenever I have a meaningful connection with a stranger or am fortunate enough to catch a special moment in nature, I think, “Baruch HaShem, thank G-d for small miracles.” The Israelites that left Egypt, on the other hand, saw the Red Sea miraculously part, and still complained that they had been lead out of slavery only to die far worse deaths in the desert. When G-d tries to speak to the directly, they are too intimidated by Divine power and beg Moses to go talk to G-d on their behalf, and yet weeks later they are skeptical of G-d’s complete sovereignty and they built the golden calf.

So, in this poem, G-d is sternly explaining to the next generation of Israelites why their parents wandered for 40 years and will not be allowed into the Holy Land. It is a warning for the new generation, explaining to them that it is not too late, that G-d will always protect those that keep the Mitzvot in their hearts and teach the commandments on to their children.

“It is not an empty thing” (32:47), these sad songs which our parents could not understand. My brother and I found beauty, a way to grieve when we needed it, warnings, and life lessons from our songs, just as Jews have been gleaning from this song from the Torah for thousands of years. Sometimes our parents just can’t see the lessons the way we do; each generation has its own songs to teach it. But if we choose wisely, and listen with the right mentality, they should all give each of us basically the same lessons to live our lives well.

May each of us find the right song to help us remember to open our ears not only to the lyrics but also to G-d and to each other. Amen and Shabbat Shalom. 

Bereshit – 2nd Day Rosh HaShaha

            The first trope, or chanting pattern, of the Torah is the pattern called tipcha, which is usually proceeded by a mercha, or sometimes other trope. It is rarely the first in a sequence. As I began practicing the chanting for today, it felt odd to begin a sequence with tipcha, much like trying to form a question without starting with “What” or “How”. The way I always learned the translation was, “In the beginning, G-d created the Heavens and the Earth.” Chabad offers a translation of, “In the beginning of G-d’s creation of Heaven and Earth.” Looking directly at the Hebrew, although my translation skills still need work, I’d have to say the translation I was taught is correct. Bara is a verb (“G-d created”) not a noun (“G-d’s creation”). But perhaps those at Chabad were reading into something about the trope given “Bereshit”, since their translation is not really a full sentence. Is this not really the beginning? Was there more to the sentence? Maybe in whatever came before, where we might have sung a mercha, it was explained who G-d is talking to; who is the “US” in, “Let Us make human in Our image.” There have been many experts who have tried to analyze the Hebrew phrasing in Genesis in order to determine what might be the best translation, and the jury is still out on that. I’m no linguist and I’m not going to try to go through all the possibilities, because in the end, I don’t think it matters that much. These are unanswerable questions that we need not consume ourselves with.

            You may have heard that the Torah begins with a Bet to signify that we should not go looking for answers about G-d before Torah. The Bet is shaped so that it is open to the rest of the text, but closed off to that which may have come before it, as well as on top or below. This was the sort of random information just thrown at me as a child without background, along with “Eat your vegetables, there are children starving in China.” So much like anyone looking to be a nutritionist would have to research why vegetables are good for you, or an international public health official might need to look into why children are starving in China, I investigated this Midrash and it appears to have come from Midrash Bereshit Rabbah. When we read the story of the creation of the world, many questions come to mind. What prompted creation? What preceded creation? What is the correct translation of this story? Tradition tells us that these are not questions that should be explored extensively. "Why was the world created with the letter bet?", asks Midrash Bereshit Rabbah, "Just as the bet is closed at the top and at the sides, so you may not investigate what is below, what is above, and what is before; only what is in front." 

            As we begin our new year, there may be many among us looking for a fresh start, a new beginning. One that may be marked with a Bet, so as to say, “Please, let this just be the Beginning, and do not ask me of what came before.” Although with G-d, we allow the Bet to be our barrier from questions that could never possibly be satisfactorily answered, with our fellow humans we can let that Bet be our barrier out of respect for someone’s privacy.

            This summer was a tough one for a lot of people back in my hometown, as we a lost a young member of our community, my brother’s best friend. At the wake my brother said he felt like he had put more effort into keeping his friend alive than he had ever put into anything else in his life. Since then, he hasn’t worked much or at all (he does promotional work for bands, and occasionally even books shows or puts events together, so his schedule is irregular anyway), and in the last few weeks has spent a lot more time with my parents and not with his friends. He seems to be sort of floating. He decided sometime in the last few days that he’s going to move to CO, where he hardly knows anyone, for at least six months. He’s been selling most of his possessions, and cutting back on his cigarettes in anticipation of the air change, and plans to have quit completely by the time he gets there. I will miss him when he goes so far away, but I hope that it will be the fresh beginning he needs. I hope he can move there with a metaphorical Bet and no one will need to know about what came before. I hope that he will meet new people, and not just new faces and names with the same old lifestyles.

            Conversely, as we approach Yom Kippur, and the days of atonement and forgiveness are upon us, I hope we all remember to allow fresh starts in our relationships with those who may have transgressed against us. Let us not hold grudges, or anger, or sadness of the past. This year, let us all allow ourselves and each other a new beginning, a fresh start, and no longer poke at what may have come before. Amen, L’Shana Tova v’Shalom. 

Nitzavim - Kehillah Kedosha

Nitzavim

9/15/12

            There are often jokes made among young adult Reform Jews that though we spend the bulk of our childhoods in “Hebrew School” we don’t actually learn much Hebrew. True to this, when I was at Kutz Camp at the age of 16 I was hearing Hebrew outside prayer for the first time ever. One evening I walked into the main meeting hall on camp singing the words to a Danny Nichols song, Hebrew words I did not really know the meaning of. A haughty son of a prominent Reform Jewish leader, having just returned from a semester in Israel and feeling very confident in his Hebrew, said to me, “You know how stupid that song is? ‘If you are you, then we’re standing’. That is what you’re saying. The lyrics don’t make any sense!” Reasoning, that the sentence just said in English did not make any sense indeed, and that this boy was clearly much smarter and cooler than me, I made some embarrassed excuse, giggled nervously, slinked away to hide for the rest of the evening.

            Hearing the words now, in light of this week’s Torah portion, it doesn’t sound so stupid. Sure, “If you are you, then we’re standing,” still doesn’t make a lot of sense, but the line of the parasha is, “אַתֶּם נִצָּבִים הַיּוֹם כֻּלְּכֶם לִפְנֵי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם” (You are all standing this day before the Lord, your G-d.) The lyrics are, “If you are Atem, then we’re nitzavim, we stand here today and remember the dream.” Moses stood before all the people of Israel on the day of his death, declaring them now officially a single nation, and telling them the time has come to commit themselves, and all the generations to come, to the covenant with G-d, as had our father Abraham. Dan Nichols stood before a large group of Reform Jewish teenagers and reminded us that we are all still standing, and must remember the covenant. Moses told the people that even the woodcutters and water drawers, who according to Rashi might actually be non-Jews subjugated to bad jobs, are now a part of this community. A community Dan Nichols calls a “Kehillah Kedosha”. “Each one of us must start to hear.  Each one of us must sing the song. Each one of us must do the work.  Each one of must right the wrong. Each one of us must build the home.  Each one of us must hold the hope. Each one of us, each one of us!”

            Moses reminds us the Word of G-d is not concealed from us:

12. It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?"		יב. לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִוא לֵאמֹר מִי יַעֲלֶה לָּנוּ הַשָּׁמַיְמָה וְיִקָּחֶהָ לָּנוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵנוּ אֹתָהּ וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה:
13. Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?"		יג. וְלֹא מֵעֵבֶר לַיָּם הִוא לֵאמֹר מִי יַעֲבָר לָנוּ אֶל עֵבֶר הַיָּם וְיִקָּחֶהָ לָּנוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵנוּ אֹתָהּ וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה:
14. Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.		יד. כִּי קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ לַעֲשֹׂתוֹ:

Dan Nichols explains it’s all in “how we help. It’s how we give.  It’s how we pray.  It’s how we heal.  It’s how we live.” May you all remember our covenant with G-d and find your place in our KEHILLA KEDOSHA, KEHILLA KEDOSHAAAAA!