Category Archives: Divrei Torah

The Song of Songs – An Allegory of the Love Between God and Israel

12 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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“The world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.”

So said Rabbi Akiva, who regarded The Song as an allegory of the love between  God and Israel.

On first reading The Song is a secular poem celebrating young, sensuous, erotic love, a “love stronger than death.” Read more deeply, it holds the Presence of an Ineffable Other.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Cook expressed the mystic’s longing with these words:

“Expanses divine my soul craves. / Confine me not in cages, / of substance or of spirit. / I am love-sick — / I thirst, I thirst for God, as a deer for water brooks. / Alas, who can describe my pain? / Who will be a violin to express the songs of my grief? / I am bound to the world, all creatures, all people are my friends, / Many parts of my soul / are intertwined with them, / But how can I share with them my light?” (Translated by Ben Zion Bokser)

The Biblical Song of Songs is read on the Shabbat during the festival of Pesach.

A Thought for Purim

06 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Jewish History

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 הפוך in Hebrew means opposite, upside-down, reversed, or backward!

However, in regards to the reading of the Book of Esther backwards, Jewish law (Halacha) says: “One who reads the Megilah backwards has not fulfilled the mitzvah (commandment) of reading the Megilah.”

The Baal Shem Tov (the founder of modern Hasidism) comments, saying: “If you read the Megilah thinking it’s only about the past [i.e. looking backwards], you miss the point.”

We Jews need to look forward always. Though we are a people with a long memory and we do not forget very much in our history and experience, we become mired in the past to our own detriment because then we find ourselves responding to current challenges inappropriately and unwisely.

Chag Sameach!

 

 

Living in Light – D’var Torah Parashat Bo

27 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Health and Well-Being, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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“I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went and came, and brought no day,
And [people] forgot their passions in the dread
Of this desolation; and all hearts
Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light:…”

Lord Byron describes well what must have been in the hearts of the Egyptians when the 9th plague of darkness befell them, as described in this week’s Torah portion Bo.

This was not an ordinary darkness. So dense it was that a person couldn’t see the hand in front of his face and if he/she moved would trip over the darkness.

The Midrash says that this darkness (choshech) wasn’t of the natural world. It wasn’t as a consequence of a solar eclipse or a moonless night. While it oppressed the Egyptians, the sun and universe operated normally everywhere else. It was as if each Egyptian was imprisoned in a black box of isolation, requisite punishment for their cruelty. This darkness catapulted the Egyptians back to a time before the creation when “darkness covered the face of the deep.” (Genesis 1:2)

From whence did it come? And what did it mean? In Psalms (105:28) it is said; Shalach choshech va-yach’shich – “God sent darkness and it became dark.” In our portion God instructs Moses; N’tei yad’cha al ha-shamayim vi-hi choshech… – “Hold your arm over the sky that there may be darkness upon the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be touched.” (Exodus 10:21) This darkness reflected the debased spiritual and moral condition of the Egyptians.

The Psalms tell us something else as well; Yashet choshech sitro s’vi-vo-tav sukato – “He makes darkness be His screen round about Him,” (18:12) suggesting that the spiritual light that abides at the very core of existence is always hidden and could never enter the Egyptian heart. That same light, however, shone in all the Israelite dwellings. In its pure form this light was so powerful that no one could see it and live. It is said that every angel and human being are able to receive only a very small measure of this Divine glow, each according to our spiritual capacity and development.

The Kabbalist Rabbeinu Bachya ben Asher (14th century Spain) taught that God shut down every Egyptian’s antenna so that none could receive these Godly light-waves and therefore not interfere with the Source of its transmission. But the Israelite antennae were open.

What does all this mean for us?

It is a certainty that each of us will suffer a broken heart once or more in our lives. Some of us bear chronic biochemical imbalances that need medical attention. All of us need love and support when we or our loved ones become ill, divorce, suffer the death of dear ones, the loss of jobs and income. Every loss casts a darkness upon the human soul.

Rabbi Isaac Meir Alter (19th century Poland) taught that the worst darkness of all is that blindness in which one person will not “see another,” and will refuse to look upon another’s misery and lend a hand. Such a person is incapable of “rising from his/her place,” that is, of growing in heart and soul.

Rabbi Yochanan taught that every eye has an area of white and black. We might think that the human being sees out of the white part. But no! We see out of the black part, which means when we’re in the dark we’re capable of seeing what’s in the light, but when we’re in the light we can’t see what’s in the dark. (Yalkut Shimoni 378).

In other words, there is always hope out of darkness, and there is always light when we think there is none.

In Egypt, wherever Jews went light went with them because the light was in them. That is what it means to be a Jew – to live in the light, to be a light to others and to hope.

Shabbat Shalom!

“”Shortness of Breath” – Then and Now – D’var Torah Vaeira

20 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Health and Well-Being, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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This past week I was talking with a good friend and colleague when he said, “John – I’ve been really irritable lately. Everything people do and say bothers me.”

I asked if anything particular was wrong. “No. Everything is fine,” he said. His marriage is happy and strong, his children well, and his work meaningful.

“Yet, I feel so impatient all the time. Things that normally don’t bother me now do.”

Knowing the way he works I suggested that he was exhausted. “Perhaps,” he said, “but I don’t feel any more tired than normal!”

That’s the rub. My friend’s “normal” isn’t normal at all. Though he does what many rabbis do, such work can be overwhelming. When I spelled it out for him, he acknowledged that I was probably right.

Certainly, the rabbinate isn’t the only occupation that exhausts its practitioners. No one is immune.

In this week’s Torah portion Vaeira (Exodus 6:2-10:1) we see the deleterious impact that relentless demands can have upon us.

The pivotal scene puts Moses talking with God a second time. He and Aaron had just appeared before Pharaoh to demand the people’s liberation. But, every request turned Pharaoh’s heart harder and he increased their work-load and their sufferings.

God responds by promising the people the greatest reward:

“I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, the Lord, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I the Lord.” (Exodus 6:6-8)

Then, we read, “Vay’da-beir Moshe ken el b’nai Yisraeil v’lo sha-mu el Moshe mi-kotzer ruach u-mei-avodah kashah.”  “When Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, mi-kotzer ruach” (Lit. “because of shortness of breath”). What is its meaning?

Rashi comments that “the people didn’t accept consolation [i.e. Moses’ message of their impending redemption] for they were too much under stress.” All hope had left them. Abraham ibn Ezra translated mi-kotzer ruach to mean that the people were “impatient,” short-tempered and fatigued and incapable of sensing a higher purpose in their lives.

Though we are no longer “slaves” in this classic sense, our schedules can control us, people to whom we’ve given over too much influence of our lives can oppress us, obligations we’ve taken on can weigh us down, and the legitimate needs of others (our spouses, children, parents, friends and colleagues) can burden us.

When we feel over-burdened our spirits are afflicted and our creativity is diminished.

This past week in another blog I reflected on the work of Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future and the importance of our nurturing our solitude as a means in stimulating the creative impulse and restoring balance in our lives. I refer you to that blog now.

Shabbat shalom.   

 

A Pure Soul – A poem for Parashat Shmot in honor of Moses and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

12 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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The Book of Exodus is essentially a story about God’s saving love for the oppressed Israelites. It begins with the birth of Moses and follows him as a young prince turned into a rebel and outlaw, then a shepherd, and finally THE prophet of God.

Why Moses? What was so unique about him that God should choose him to be His most intimate of prophets?

Moses is a complex man; passionate, pure, just, humble, at home no where, carrying always the burdens of his people and the word of God.

God identified him because he was unique, and that is what my drash-poem below is about; namely, the uniqueness that would draw Moses out to become the most important Jew in history.

Dr. Martin Luther King, though not Moses, was a prophet for our times, and on this weekend we celebrate his legacy.

—–

So often we walk about in a daze, / Eyes sunk in creviced faces / Fettered to worldly tasks / Blind to rainbows.

I imagine Moses, in Midian, like that, / Brooding in exile, / Burdened by his people’s suffering, / Knowing that each day / They scream from stopped-up hearts / Shedding silent tears.

A simple shepherd Moses had become / Staff in hand / Counting sheep / Until one day / Weaving through rocks / Among bramble bushes / The shepherd heard thorns popping. / Turning his head / His eyes were opened / And he would never be the same.

God had from his birth taken note of him / And waited until this moment / To choose him as prophet.

Dodi dofek pitchi li / A-choti ra-yati yo-nati ta-mati. / Open to me, my dove, / my twin, my undefiled one. (Song of Songs 5:2)

Moses heard the Divine voice / His eyes beheld angels / His soul flowed with a sacred river / Of Shechinah light.

‘Why me? / Why should I behold such wondrous things? / Unworthy am I!’

God said, / ‘Moses – I have chosen you / Because you are soft / Because you weep / Because your heart is burdened and worried / Because you know this world’s cruelty / Yet you have not become cruel / Nor do you stand idly by.

You are a tender of sheep / And you will lead my people / With the shepherd’s staff / From Egypt / And teach them to open their stopped-up hearts / Without fear.’

Trembling, Moses peered a second time / Into the bush aflame / Free from ash and smoke.

His eyes opened as in a dream / And he heard a soft murmuring sound / Like the sound breath makes passing through parted lips.

MOSHE MOSHE!—HINEINI!

Two voices—One utterance! / He hid his face / For the more Moses heard / The brighter was the light / And he knew he must turn away / Or die.

The prophet’s thoughts were free / Soaring beyond form / No longer of self. / To this very day / There has not been a purer soul than his.

God said, ‘Come no closer, Moses! / Remove your shoes / Stand barefoot here on this earth / For I want your soul.

I am here with you and in you / I am every thing / And no thing / And You are Me. / I see that which is and which is not / And I hear it all.

Take heed shepherd/prince / For My people‘s blood  / Calls to me from the ground. / The living suffer still / A thousand deaths.

You must go and take them out! / Every crying child / Every lashed man / Every woman screaming silent tears.

And Moses, know this / “With weeping they will come, / And with compassion will I guide them.” (Jeremiah 31:8) / The people’s exile began with tears / And it will end with tears.

I have recorded their story in a Book / Black fire on white fire / Letters on parchment / Telling of slaves / Seeing light / Turning to Me / Becoming a nation.

The Book is My spirit / The letters are My heart / They are near to you / That you might do them / And teach them / And redeem My world / That it might not be consumed in flames.

Twelve Lines about the Burning Bush – a poem from Yiddish

08 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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“What’s going to be the end for both of us—God? / Are you really going to let me die like this / And really not tell me the big secret?

Must I really become dust, gray dust, and ash, black ash, / While the secret, which is closer than my shirt, than my skin, / Still remains secret, though it’s deeper in me than my own heart?

And was it really in vain that I hoped by day and waited by night? / And will you, until the very last moment, remain godlike-cruel and hard? / Your face deaf like dumb stone, like cement, blind-stubborn?

Not for nothing is one of your thousand names—thorn you thorn in my spirit and flesh and bone, / Piercing me—I can’t tear you out; burning me—I can’t stamp you out, / Moment I can’t forget, eternity I can’t comprehend.”

By Melech Ravitch (translated from the Yiddish by Ruth Whitman), based on Exodus 3:1-15, appears in Modern Poems on the Bible: an Anthology, Edited with an Introduction by David Curzon, JPS, 1994, p. 161.

Melech Ravitch is the pseudonym of Zekharye-Khone Bergner (1893–1976), a Yiddish poet, essayist, playwright, and cultural activist. Born in Radymno, eastern Galicia, into a home where the main spoken languages were Polish and German, Ravitch received a secular general education, including business school, and a limited traditional Jewish education. In 1921, he settled in Warsaw, and from the 1930s on, Ravitch lived in Australia, Argentina, and Mexico, until finally settling in Montreal. His main works include a comprehensive anthology Di lider fun mayne lider (The Poems of My Poems – 1954) and his two volume series Mayn leksikon (My Lexicon; 1945–1947) offer intimate portraits of Yiddish writers in Poland. His memoirs, Dos mayse-bukh fun mayn lebn (The Storybook of My Life; 3 vols., 1962–1975), describe his life in Galicia, Vienna, and Warsaw. These biographical notes are from the Yivo Encyclopedia of Jews of Eastern Europe.

 

 

The Imagination and the Ardors of Youth – Dvar Torah Vayechi

06 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories

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This week Joseph, hearing that his father Jacob is on the edge of death, brings his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, to see their old grandfather. Knowing that they stand before him, his eyesight failing, Jacob says that his grandsons will be no less “his” than his actual sons. Joseph positioned his sons opposite his father Jacob for a blessing, expecting that Jacob would bless the first-born Manasseh. But Jacob reversed his hands and blessed Ephraim instead. (Genesis 48)

This is not the first time that the younger son is favored over the first-born. The precedent was established with Cain and Abel and continued with Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, and Jacob’s 10 older sons and Joseph.

Recalling “The Godfather,” Don Corleone loves all his sons, but he prefers that his youngest, Michael, become Godfather after him because he saw something special in Michael as the future leader of the family.

So too in the Biblical narrative – Abel’s offering to God was of a higher order than Cain’s. Isaac’s devotion to Abraham’s faith exceeded that of Ishmael. Jacob’s spiritual orientation was recognized by his mother Rebecca as opposed to Esau, a hunter and “man of the field.” And Jacob understood that Joseph was graced uniquely by God.

What about Manasseh and Ephraim?

Rashi (11th century, France) had this to say: “Ephraim was frequently in the presence of Jacob for the purpose of study.” (Commentary on Genesis 48:1) The great commentator suggests that Ephraim, the younger son, was essentially like Jacob who preferred the study of Torah with his father to other earthly pursuits. Rashi presumed that Jacob could not have blessed his younger son Ephraim unless he saw something unique and special in him.

Commentators suggest that Manasseh also had special gifts, but of a different kind. They say that Manasseh was a talented linguist and served as Joseph’s interpreter in Pharaoh’s court. Manasseh learned the arts of diplomacy, politics and statesmanship. Whereas Manasseh symbolized worldly wisdom, Ephraim symbolized Torah wisdom.

By choosing Ephraim over Manasseh, tradition ascribes to Jacob the understanding that a Jewish leader must be inspired by Torah learning, regardless of his/her brilliance in business, the sciences, or in his/her understanding of statecraft.

Despite the Biblical tradition of favoring the first-born, Judaism rejected consistently that the birthright should automatically take precedence in determining future leadership. Instead, leadership was to be based on merit and qualities of soul.

Tradition also taught that age can corrupt the imagination and cool the ardors of youth. There must come a time, therefore, when the dreams of the young take precedence and the old step aside.

From its beginnings, the American Reform movement measured its worth according to the ethics of the Biblical prophet. One of the American Reform movement’s great 20th century leaders, Rabbi Jacob Weinstein (z’l), put this idea eloquently:

“Israel should be understood as a permanent underground, the eternal yeast, the perennial Elijah spirit, ever willing to plough the cake of custom, to put rollers under thrones and give only a day to day lease to authority. Anchored to Torah, rooted to God, Israel feels free to dispense with human made hierarchies which would forever place the elder over the younger.”

To be a Jew has meant always to be dissatisfied with the world as it is and to strive to transform it into a more just, compassionate and peaceful society as guided by the principles of Torah. Jacob’s choice of Ephraim for the blessing represents this very promise.

Shabbat Shalom!

The Measure of Our Success – Parashat Vayigash

30 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Health and Well-Being

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As 2011 comes to a blessed close, our world continues to escalate in its brutality, is more politically fragile, economically distressed, religiously challenged, and morally confused than ever before. In times such as these it is worthwhile for us to consider who we are and how we might measure our personal, societal and international successes and failures. In this I am reminded of Churchill’s words that a successful person will “be… able to go from one failure to the next without losing enthusiasm.”

This week’s Torah portion Vayigash has something to teach us about the importance of attitude in life. In these closing chapters of Genesis we come to the climax of the Joseph narratives. The crown prince meets his brothers after 20 years of exile and reveals himself to them. As they cower he forgives them and makes peace. Finally, he settles his father Jacob in the land of Goshen.

Pharaoh has occasion to meet Jacob in these chapters as well, and one old man asks another: “Jacob – How many are the years of your life?” He responds, “The years of my sojourn on earth are one hundred and thirty. Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life-spans of my fathers during their sojourns.” (Genesis 47:8-9)

This seems an odd response given Jacob’s life. Recognizing Jacob as a kvetch, the Midrash (B’reishit Rabba 95) brings an incredulous God into the conversation:

“Jacob [says the Eternal]: ‘I saved you from Esau and Laban; I brought [your daughter] Dinah back to you [after she was raped and held captive], as well as Joseph [who you presumed to be dead at the hands of a wild beast] and you complain that your life has been short and evil?’ [If so] I’ll count the words of Pharaoh’s question to you and your response, add them together and shorten your life [by that number of years – 33] so you’ll not live as long as your father Isaac, who lived to 180.’ Jacob lived 147 years.”

What has happened to Jacob? He had 4 wives, 13 children and many grandchildren. His son Joseph had become the second most powerful man in the world and he himself had encountered God twice, in a dream and at a river, but Jacob can only complain!

Where’s the gratitude? That this conversation with Pharaoh should come just after Jacob had been reunited with Joseph, his favorite son, is disheartening and disturbing.

Truth to tell, we all know people like this who see their lives as through a negative prism: Parents who fixate on their children’s weaknesses and failings; marriages that dissolve because one partner won’t let go of past slights, the bad times and the other’s flaws; and our own refusal to overcome disappointments.

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey concludes that the most well-balanced, positive and proactive people, who live happily with others at work and home, are successful because they balance four dimensions of their natures; the physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional.

We may need to care more for our bodies, eat better food and less of it, drop excess weight, get sufficient rest, keep stress and negativity at bay, and exercise more.

Or maybe spiritually we’re closed to the experience of mystery, awe and wonder.

We may have become intellectually stagnant, our curiosity suppressed and our minds inactive.

Perhaps we’ve become jaded and numb to feeling, focused too much on ourselves and without empathy.

The Midrash surmises that Jacob’s negativity and propensity to complain, despite his many blessings, shaved years from his life. Writing 1500 years ago, the rabbis anticipated what psychiatrists and scientists would conclude today, that some illness and even early death can be avoided if we took better care of ourselves in body, mind and soul and paid more attention to our relationships with each other.

The 19th century writer Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this of a ‘successful life’:

“A person is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent people and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his/her task; who leaves the world better than s/he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best s/he had.”

Wiser words have not been uttered.

Shabbat Shalom and a happy, healthy, meaningful, and balanced New Year!

In The Black Night – A Poem for Parashat Vayishlach

09 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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In the black night / the river runs cold / slowly passing me by / over formerly sharp edged stones / worn smooth by centuries of churning, / as if through earthy veins – / and I Jacob, alone, / shiver and wait / to meet my brother / and daylight.

Will there be war? / And will the angels carry my soul / up the rungs of the ladder / leaving my blood / to soak the earthly crust?

A presence!? / And I struggle yet again / as if in my mother’s womb / and in my dreams.

We played together as children once, / my brother Esau and me / as innocents, / and I confess tonight / how I wronged him / and wrenched from him his birthright / as this Being has done to me / between my thighs.

I was so young / driven by ego and need, / blinded by ambition, / my mother’s dreams / and my father’s silence.

I so craved to be first born / adored by my father, / to assume his place when he died / that my name be remembered / and define a people.

How Esau suffered and wailed / and I didn’t care. / Whatever his dreams / they were nothing to me – / my heart was hard – / his life be damned!

But, after all these years / I’ve learned that Esau and I / each alone is a palga gufa – a half soul / without the other – / torn away / as two souls separated at creation / seeking reunification / in a sea of souls – / the yin missing the yang – / the dark and light never to touch – / the mind divorced from body – / the soul in exile – / without a beating bleating heart / to witness – / and no access to the thirty-two paths / to carry us together / up the ladder / and through the spheres.

It’s come to this! / To struggle again – / To live or die.

Tonight / I’m ready for death / or submission.

Compassionate One: / protect Esau and your servant – / my brother and me / as one – / and return us to each other.

El na r’fa na lanu! / Grant us peace and rest! / I’m very tired!

Jacob’s Dream and His Emergence into a Man of Faith – D’var Torah Vayetzei

02 Friday Dec 2011

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Jacob’s destiny was set from birth, but it would come at a price. As his mother Rebekah’s troubled twin pregnancy came to an end and the babies were born, Jacob emerged holding Esau’s heel suggesting a strong pre-natal desire to be born first and become, one day, the future leader of the tribe. In a clever commentary, Rashi (11th century, France) says that the scene reflects a primogeniture truth, that Jacob was actually conceived first, though he came out second, much as a pebble dropped into a tube first will come out second when the tube is inverted.

Despite being second-born, tradition asserts that Jacob’s spiritual potential merited his assuming first-born rights, and it also suggests that Rebecca knew that Esau, a hunter, lacked the requisite sensitivity, gentility, vision, and prophetic capacity to lead the tribe whereas Jacob possessed all those virtues.

Jacob’s dream event that opens this week’s portion (Genesis 28:10-22) signals the beginning of an important new stage in Jacob’s life. He had just fled in fear from an enraged Esau, was alone in the mountains, unsure of himself, and exhausted. He fell asleep and dreamed of ladders and angels.

This dream sequence is filled with powerful religious imagery, suggestion and mythic archetypes. The stones Jacob placed under his head are symbolic representing what Carl Jung called the Ego, the limited “I” of Jacob, a man still unaware (until this week’s portion) of the deeper implicate order linking the material and metaphysical worlds. The top of the ladder represents what Jung called the integrated Self which unifies the conscious and unconscious into a non-dualistic cosmos.

When Jacob went to sleep using those stones as a kind of pillow, we suspect that something unusual is about to happen, that he is on the cusp of new self-consciousness. Lo and behold, he sees angels ascending (representing our human yearnings and outreach for something greater than ourselves) and angels descending (representing God’s outreach towards us).

When Jacob awoke from the dream and opened his eyes, he was astonished: “Surely God is in this place, va’anochi lo yadati, and I did not know it! … How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and this is the gateway to heaven.” (28:16-17)

The beginning of any religious experience requires that we understand that we really know nothing at all. In Hebrew “I” is ani (anochi is a variant form), and when we rearrange the letters – aleph, nun, yod – we spell ain, which means “nothing”). In other words, the religious person must transform the “I” of our limited egos into a great Self in which we become part of the Oneness of God. Jacob’s sudden awareness reflects his newfound humility and is a prerequisite to the development of his faith.

Despite the spiritual potency of this experience, Jacob is still unaware (i.e. he lacks access to his full unconscious) and his faith is consequently conditional. He says, “If God remains with me, if God protects me…, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe … – the Eternal shall be my God.” (28:20-21)

One of the consistent themes throughout the Genesis narratives is that in order for the Biblical figures to grow in faith they had to suffer trials. As a protected child of his mother, Jacob had been always pampered. However, in being forced to flee for his life from the brother he wronged, Jacob first became aware of the shadow (Jung’s term denoting that part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts) in which he lived and which would envelop him for the next twenty years when at last he will meet a being divine and human at the river Jabbok and emerge with a new name, Yisrael – the one who struggles with God but prevails.

From Jacob’s birth to next week’s struggle we see his evolution from the unconsciousness of childhood to greater awareness, from being a self-centered trickster to the bearer of the covenant. As he progressed he learned that he must choose whether or not he will view the world through the eyes of faith.

For each of us, too, how we choose to see the world is consequential, and one of the most important consequences is whether or not we permit ourselves to stand at heaven’s gate.

Shabbat Shalom!