Tag Archives: Divrei Torah

A Weeping Isaac Alone in the Field – A Paradigm for Our Times

06 Friday Nov 2015

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Chayei Sarah is a monumental Torah portion in the Book of Genesis (23:1-25:18) that establishes Hevron as one of our people’s holiest cities in the land of Israel and tells the story of the betrothal of Isaac and Rebekah. Thus, for the first time in Jewish history we witness the passing of the baton of history from one generation to the next.

We, the current generation, however, have yet to fulfill our Jewish destiny. Hevron today is a hot spot of Palestinian and Jewish rage, of extremism and violence, of polarization and hate. Until there is peace (shalom) between the tribes of Israel and shalom/salem (not hudna – i.e. “quiet”) between Israel and the Palestinians, we will not have fulfilled our raison d’etre as a people to be rod’fei shalom, pursuers of peace.

The current violence cannot be the way forward, nor can suspicion, distrust and hatred of the “other” define the character of our people’s and the Palestinian people’s hearts and souls.

I offer a poetic midrash on Isaac’s and Rebekah’s encounter leading to their marriage. I love this story because their meeting is pure and sweet, and it suggests a paradigm of what is possible not only between individuals, but between the tribes that comprise the Jewish people today (e.g. Haredi, Orthodox, Mizrachi, Ashkenazi, Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, secular, atheist, liberal and right-wing Zionists, American, Israeli, European, Latin, etc.), and the peoples of the Middle East who know far too much polarization, suspicion, distrust, and hatred of each other.

A Weeping Isaac Alone in the Field

To be alone amidst shifting wheat / And rocks and sun / Beneath stirred-up clouds / And singing angels / Audible only by the wind.

I’ve secluded myself / As my father did / When he went out / Alone leaving all he knew / For a place he’d never been / That God would show him.

I can do nothing else / Because Father broke my heart / And crushed my soul / When he betrayed me / By stealing me away one morning / Before my mother awoke / And nearly offered me to his God.

When my mother learned / Her soul passed from the world.

O how she loved me! / And filled me up / With laughter, love and tears.

Bereft now / I’m desolate in this world / And this field.

O Compassionate One – Do You hear me / From this arid place / Filled with snakes and beasts, hatred and vengeance?

I sit here needing YOU.

As if in response, / Suddenly from afar / Appears a caravan / Of people and camels, / Led by Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, / With a young girl.

Isaac, burdened by grief / Neither looks nor sees.

He sits still / Lasuach basadeh / Meditating / And weeping / Beneath the afternoon sun / And swirling clouds / And singing angels / Whom he cannot hear.

Rebekah asks: / ‘Who is that man crying alone in the field?’

Eliezer says: / ‘He is my master Isaac, / Your intended one, / Whose seed you will carry / Into the future.’

“Vatipol min hagamal – And she fell from her camel” / Shocked and afraid / Onto the hard ground / Yearning.

She veiled her face / Bowed her head / And Rebekah and Isaac entered / Sarah’s tent, / And she comforted him.

Watson – you see but you do not observe! Parashat Vayera

29 Thursday Oct 2015

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This week’s Torah portion Vayera reminds me of Sherlock Holmes’ famous statement to his loyal friend Dr. Watson: “Watson – you see but you do not observe!”

Most of us are like Watson. At first sight, we see only the surface of things, an object’s size, shape, color, line, texture, and form.

Jewish mysticism teaches, however, that nothing is as it appears to the eye – every physical thing is but a reflection of something deeper, more complex, wondrous, and enriched than we imagine it to be.

The great Jewish scholar, Dr. Jacob Neusner, described the 2nd century law code, the Mishnah, as an ideal spiritual architecture underpinning the physical world. Every letter, word, phrase, and law, he said, embraces the seen and the unseen, the explicit and implicit – all existence.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayera, is about seeing in all its dimensions. It concerns especially what God sees and what God wants us to see;  the physical and the metaphysical, the material and what can be grasped only through intuition.

The 3-letter Hebrew root of the title of Vayera (“And God appeared…”) is resh-aleph-heh. The root appears 11 times in the portion in a variety of forms (Genesis 18:1-22:24). In 9 of the 11, it is used in connection with God and angels (i.e. God’s messengers).

Abraham greets three God-like men who ‘appear’ near his tent. God goes to Sodom and ‘sees’ whether the people have turned away from their evil. Lot ‘saw’ two of God’s messengers. Sarah ‘saw’ Ishmael and feared he had receive the inheritance in place of her son Isaac. Hagar ‘saw’ a well of water that would save her son, Ishmael, from certain death. Abraham and Isaac both were able to ‘see’ the cloud hovering upon a mountain called Moriah, the place (Makom – another word for God) where there would be ‘vision.’

In those 9 of 11 occurrences, there is divine revelation. These chapters of Vayera point to our patriarch Abraham as a grand ‘seer’ graced with intuitive insight. In every one of these spiritual encounters, we sense newness and spiritual awakening, and that phenomenon inspires within the heart the virtues of appreciation and gratitude and within the soul the experience of awe and wonder.

When the heart opens this way and the soul ‘sees,’ we mere mortals are drawn more deeply into what it means to be human and to sense what God requires of us ethically and spiritually in the world.

Abraham, the prophet and patriarch, must have had a highly developed intuitive sensibility. If only we could hear God’s voice and know what Abraham experienced in those moments!

The 18th century British poet and painter, William Blake, in his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, imagined a conversation with the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel:

“…the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert that God spoke to them; and whether they did not think at the time that they would be misunderstood…?  To which Isaiah answered: ‘I saw no God nor heard any in a finite organic perception; but my senses discovered the infinite in everything.”

Blake’s way is also the way of the Jewish mystic who senses always the holy in the mundane and glimpses the Godly in the human situation. I suspect this was Abraham’s experience as he welcomed the three visitors to his tent. He saw them as human beings, but they were really angels. Thus, Abraham set the way of the Jew and became our example.

Boggling the Mind – A New Super-Fast Camera

27 Sunday Sep 2015

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I recently watched a 5-minute piece of footage from PBS’s NOVA (from the 2013 season) about the development of “Super-Fast Cameras.” It not only inspired in me a sense of awe and wonder  about the character and behavior of light, but also about the current state of our technological and scientific know-how.

This video shows that which humankind has never been able to observe before – the fastest thing in the universe – light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z8EtlBe8Ts

In the 1950s, a 2000-mph bullet was photographed passing through an apple. The video shows a picture of that bullet as if suspended in time, in one particular moment.

In the past 60 years, a new Super-Fast Camera has been developed that can break down what happens to a one-trillionth of a frame per second, thus enabling us to see, moment by moment, light moving into a scene.

We can even see the moment a shadow is formed after light hits an object, not simultaneously as we once assumed.

We can watch light traveling at 600 million miles-per-hour, and observe what occurs in one-billionth of a second.

This NOVA PBS segment offers suggestions about how this new Super-Fast Camera can one day benefit the fields of medicine and many other human endeavors.

We will read on Simchat Torah next week the mythic story of the Creation of the universe and the human being (Genesis 1 and 2). After seeing this video, I marvel in a completely new way at the workings of the universe and at our human capacity for invention on the one hand, and the experience of awe and wonder on the other, which leads me to an insightful analysis of the differences between the two accounts in the Hebrew Bible of the creation of the human being (Adam) that appear in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

The great scholar Rabbi Yosef Soloveitchik commented on the essential differences of these two creation narratives of Adam. He named the first Adam of creation “Adam I” (Genesis 1:26-27) and the second Adam of creation “Adam II” (Genesis 2:7, 18, 21-24).

“Adam I” of Genesis 1 is a utilitarian man/woman. S/he is charged with the task of ruling over the world, mastering and subduing it to his/her purposes. The man partners with the woman who are created simultaneously, and their goals are practical, purposeful and productive. They embody the principle that two are better than one, but each, by virtue of being created “b’tzelem Elohim-in the Divine image,” are empowered with intelligence and the ability to create and be productive. Such people through history have been farmers, artists, scientists, legal scholars, physicians, architects, builders, manufacturers, fashioners of institutions, and creators of community. They are this-worldly and are energized by virtue of being useful. They find meaning and relevance when they are productive, and as long as they are they are never rebellious nor ever lonely, for they do their work in partnership with others.

“Adam II” of Genesis 2 is an existential being. He/she is created from the dust of the earth (adamah) and is endowed with divine purpose by means of being infused with  divine breath (nishmat chayim). He/She does not lord over the earth. Rather, s/he watches over creation and protects it by virtue of being one with it. Nevertheless, s/he is alone and lonely and needs an intimate partner, to be in relationship with another. So God, the Creator, draws from Adam II a tzela (often translated as “rib” but it could also mean a side, part or aspect of the primordial human) to make woman-isha.

Adam II responds to the world spontaneously, and s/he yearns for intimacy and a life of quality and meaning. S/he is neither controlling nor power-centered. S/he intuits God’s presence everywhere and strives for “ach’dut-unity” with God. (i.e. to be at one-yichud with the root-shoresh of his/her being and life in God).

Adam II is an existential being, a seeker and an appreciator, and s/he is ever-aware of God’s Infinity, Eternity and Ineffability. S/he aspires for the religious experience of community, sanctity and transcendence. S/he is faith-oriented, needs a soul mate (i.e. beshert) and a faith community.

I mention Adam I and Adam II in the context of the invention of this Super-Fast Camera because our human engagement with it embraces both Adam I and Adam II.

My brother, an awe-struck scientist, remarked to me when he shared this video with me that this Super-Fast Camera and what it can show about the behavior of light would “even boggle Einstein’s mind!”

Chag Sukkot Sameach.

The Cottage of Candles – As We Begin Elul on Shabbat Shoftim

20 Thursday Aug 2015

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There was once a Jew who went out into the world to fulfill the Biblical command – “Tzedek tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice shall you pursue.” [Deuteronomy. 26:20]

Many years passed before the man had explored the known world, except for one last great forest into which he entered. There in the forest he came upon a cave of thieves who mocked him: “Do you expect to find justice here?”

He then went into a hut of witches who laughed at him as well: “Do you expect to find justice here?”

At last he arrived at a fragile clay hut, and through the window he could see many flickering flames. He wondered why they were burning. He then knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

As soon as he entered, the hut appeared much larger than it had from outside. He saw hundreds of shelves, and on every shelf were dozens of oil candles. Some were sitting in holders of gold, silver or marble, and others were in modest clay or tin holders. Some were filled with oil and had straight wicks with brightly burning flames. Others had very little oil remaining and were about to sputter out.

An old man robed in white with a flowing white beard stood before him: “Shalom Aleichem, my son. How can I help you?”

The Jew said: “Aleichem shalom. I have gone everywhere searching for justice, but never have I seen anything like this. Tell me, what are all these candles?”

The old man said: “Each is a person’s soul,” as it says – ‘Ner Adonai nishmat Adam – The candle of God is the human soul.’ [Proverbs 20:27] As long as that person is alive the candle burns; but, when the person’s soul takes leave of this world, the candle burns out.”

The Jew who sought justice said: “Can you show me the candle of my soul?”

The old man beckoned: “Follow me.”

He led the Jew through the labyrinth of the cottage until they reached a low shelf, and there the old man pointed to a candle in a clay holder, “That is the candle of your soul.”

A great fear suddenly enveloped the Jew for the candle’s wick was short with little oil remaining. Was it possible for the end of his life to be so near without his having known it?

He then noticed the candle next to his own that was filled with oil, its wick long and straight, its flame burning brightly.

“Whose candle is that?” he wanted to know.

“I can only reveal each person’s candle to him or herself alone,” the old man said, and he left the Jew there alone.

The Jew stood there staring at his candle, and then heard a sputtering sound. When he looked up he saw smoke rising from another shelf. He knew that somewhere someone was no longer among the living. He looked back at his own candle, turned to the candle next to his own, so filled with oil, and a terrible thought came to him.

He searched for the old man, but didn’t see him. He lifted the candle filled with oil and a long brightly burning wick and he held it up just above his own. At once the old man reappeared and gripped his arm, saying: “Is THIS the kind of justice you seek?”

The Jew closed his eyes because the pain of the old man’s grip on his arm was so very great. When he opened them at last the old man was gone and the cottage and candles had disappeared. He stood there alone in the forest listening to the trees whispering his fate.”

This story, as told by Howard Schwartz, is not really about the objective state of justice in the world. Rather, it is about the commitment to justice each one of us has made. The old man (Was he God, The Angel of Death, The Keeper of Human Souls, one of the Lamed Vavniks – 36 righteous people who permit the world to survive?) became angry when the Jew tried to extend his own life at the expense of another.

The story uncovers a test – to what degree have we internalized Judaism’s moral principles and performed them in the world?

The month of Elul began last Saturday evening and ushered in a 40-day period in which we are called upon to do t’shuvah (turn and return to lives of dignity, integrity and decency) leading to Yom Kippur. We are as if living in our own great forest and God is calling to us: “Ayeka – Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).

Like the first man and first woman in the Garden of Eden, there is no place for us to hide. What is in our hearts must be a reflection of the deeds we perform and the values we embody.

Shabbat shalom!
The Torah portion for this week is Shoftim in which is the verse – “Tzedek tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice shall you pursue” appears. [Deuteronomy 16:20]

Source of story: Howard Schwartz included this story in his book The Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism. It is based on tale by Zevulon Qort who received it from Ben Zion Asherov of Afghanistan. I have edited the original telling.

Compassionate Annihilation!?

13 Thursday Aug 2015

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Ever since Zionism brought the Jewish people back into history we Jews, and especially the State of Israel, have had a major challenge; how to remain rachmanim b’nai rachmanim (compassionate children of compassionate parents) while at the same time protecting ourselves from real enemies as citizens of the modern State of Israel and as pro-Israel advocates amongst world Jewry.

In this week’s Torah portion, Re’eh, we encounter a passage set down during the time of the reign of the Judean King Josiah (7th century BCE) who was in the process of solidifying his political control over all the land of Israel while the Assyrians were busy fighting on their eastern front. Here is the offending passage:

“Smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and everything in it… gather all the spoils… and burn with fire the city… and it shall be an eternal ruin forever; never again to be rebuilt. Let nothing that has been declared taboo there remain in your hands…God will then grant you mercy and the Almighty will be merciful to you, and multiply you as Adonai has sworn unto your ancestors.” (Deuteronomy 13:16)

The juxtaposition of Israel’s utter annihilation of an enemy on the one hand and the reward of compassion on the other is jarring. Rabbi Akiva (1st-2nd century CE) tried to ameliorate the brutality of the text by saying that the phrase “God will grant you to be merciful” means that you are not to kill the children (Tosefta Sanhedrin 14).

Following the destruction of the 2nd Temple (70 CE) when the Jewish people lost political control over their homeland, Talmudic tradition writing mostly from Galut (Exile) is replete with discussion of mercy and compassion as a principal Jewish trait to be nurtured and developed. One of the most famous of these is found in Yevamot 79a: “It is taught: There are three distinguishing signs of the Jewish nation: mercifulness, humility and loving-kindness. Mercifulness, as it is written, ‘God will then grant you mercy and the Holy One will be merciful to you….’”

Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar (i.e. Ohr HaChayim – 1696-1743 CE) remarked that the killing of another human being, even when done in self-defense, can lead the killer to become accustomed to bloodlust and eventually will corrupt the heart of Jewish civilization itself. Judaism teaches that we cannot become cruel and still call ourselves Jews. It is a tragic consequence that with the establishment of the State of Israel that there have been far too many occasions when Jews have been forced to get our hands dirty. Even so, tradition warns that we Jews can never forget the virtue of mercy. With this value uppermost in mind the Haganah and then the Israel Defense Forces developed a policy called Tohar Haneshek (lit. “Purity of Arms”) that is to this day an essential aspect of the training of every Israeli soldier.

Tohar Haneshek teaches how to fight a war as compassionately as possible, even at the risk of one’s own life, in order to avoid causing harm to innocent civilians. Indeed, no army in the history of the world has done more to avoid such harm to civilians than has Israel. Few know this because the Israel-haters use every opportunity to accuse the Jewish state of inhumanity and war crimes. Nevertheless, despite Israel’s uncommon record, many Israeli soldiers come home from military duty both in times of war and after service in the administered territories scarred and devastated by what they had to endure. Israel’s current government, however, in my view is guilty in a way no other Israeli government in its history has been so guilty of presiding over a hardening of heart, disrespect for Palestinians’ essential human rights, and democratic principles on which the State was founded, that I believe in time Jewish history will judge harshly.

The passage from Deuteronomy above set down 2700 years ago is disturbingly relevant today. Compassionate annihilation!? Please. There is no such thing and we ignore that truth at our own peril.

Iran and the Bomb – Moses and the Rock – Sinai and the Rod

25 Thursday Jun 2015

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This week the Torah recounts Miriam’s death and the people’s complaints of thirst during the period of wandering. God tells Moses to take his rod and order a rock to produce water. Old and weary of the people’s incessant complaining, instead of ordering the rock to produce water Moses strikes it with his rod. Though the people drink their fill, God punishes the prophet for his defiance and bars him from entering the Promised Land (Chukat – Numbers 20:1-13).

Talmudic sages explain the severity of God’s punishment by charging that Moses’ faith wasn’t strong enough, that because he failed to sanctify God before the people the Eternal deemed him unworthy to lead them into Canaan.

Maimonides explains that Moses lacked compassion and that he should have spoken kindly to the people instead of with words of rebuke.

Others say that in losing his temper Moses lost his moral authority to be the leader.

One opines that because Moses claimed credit for the miracle of the water without acknowledging God, the Almighty denied him what he dreamed of most.

There’s yet another explanation. Earlier at Massah and Meribah the people also complained of debilitating thirst, and similar to our portion God told Moses to take his rod and hit the rock instead of speaking to it (Exodus 17).

What’s the difference?

The answer is that Sinai intervened between the two events. God intended the second time to usher in a new way of being in the world for the former slaves, to erase their humiliating experience of suffering from their hearts and souls, to create a new free people worthy of a higher order of being, to yield from force to reason, violence to dialogue, brutish despotism to moral law, might to right, and intolerance to compassion.

God wanted a new age to begin, the ‘messianic age,’ and Moses was to be the Messiah.

However, when Moses hit the rock instead of speaking to it, he showed the people that Sinai had changed nothing at all, that God was merely a more powerful Pharaoh with better magic and greater violence.

Rabbi Marc Gelman writes of what God may have intended for the people (“The Waters of Meribah,” Learn Torah with…Vol. 5, Number 16, January 30, 1999, edited by Joel Lurie Grishaver and Rabbi Stuart Kelman):

“When my people enters the land you shall not enter with them, but neither shall I. I shall only allow a part of my presence to enter the land with them. The abundance of my presence I shall keep outside the land. The exiled part shall be called my Shekhinah and it shall remind the people that I too am in exile. I too am a divided presence in the world, and that I shall only be whole again on that day when the power of the fist vanishes forever from the world. Only on that day will I be one. Only on that day will my name be one. Only on that day Moses, shall we enter the land together. Only on that day Moses, shall the waters of Meribah become the flowing waters of justice and the everlasting stream of righteousness gushing forth from my holy mountain where all people shall come and be free at last.”

Sinai teaches that the restrictive, oppressive and terrifying power of might must give way to a greater vision of Oneness if God’s word is to prevail and draw humankind together in mutual respect and dignity, in security and peace.

The most difficult challenge of our era, indeed of any era, is how we are to attain oneness in our interpersonal relationships, our communities, amongst different peoples, ethnicities, religions, and nations.

In the next week, we will learn whether the P5 + 1 nations and Iran will succeed in negotiating an agreement that brings about a dramatic reduction in Iran’s capacity to develop a nuclear bomb, and whether the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel and the peoples of the Middle East will be stilled.

Based on what we have been told is included in this agreement, even as we hear the Ayatollah’s bellicose rhetoric and “red lines” on top of Israeli and Congressional criticism and suspicion of this deal or any deal at all, there is obviously a vast difference of opinion amongst good, concerned and intelligent people about whether a successfully negotiated agreement is possible. If it is, the central questions are two: will the agreement be a harbinger of a more peaceful world, or will it be a subterfuge giving cover to Iran as it continues its march towards nuclear weapons capability.

We can only hope that the P5 + 1 advocates for an agreement are right that the deal will have enough teeth, investigative power and snap-back provisions to assure compliance and eliminate the threat of an Iranian bomb, and whether the principles established at Sinai are within reach in the real world of increasingly sectarian and tribal warfare.

The Reawakening to Love Again – A Memorial to Moshe Tabak

21 Sunday Jun 2015

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Moshe Tabak was 90 years old when he died last week. Originally from Sigid, Czechoslovakia, he was the descendent of a distinguished line of chassidic Dayanim (scholars and judges) and was one of eleven children.

Moshe’s father was a wealthy land-owner in Czechoslovakia before the war, and so when the Nazis took over the country in 1939, he felt resistant to leave despite his wife’s urgent pleas. He reasoned that the bad times would pass and they should wait it out.

Tragically, he and almost all the family were murdered in Auschwitz, except Moshe, one older brother and a younger sister who survived work camps.

After the war at a port in Rumania, Moshe was waiting to board a Haganah boat that would take him and hundreds of refugees to Palestine. He was standing in a bread line when he spotted Miriam, a girl two years younger than him. Charmed, he reached out and offered her chocolate. Miriam remembers that Moshe was wearing a hat, had beautiful blue eyes and curly hair.

Once on board the ship, Moshe became sea-sick, and Miriam nursed him. They fell in love quickly and two years later, in 1947, they married in Palestine.

Theirs was a love-match from the beginning. Jewish legend relates that at creation each soul was split in two into what is called a palga gufa, a half-soul, and then each half moves through time and multiple lives in a sea of souls seeking its other half to become whole again.

Moshe and Miriam believed they had originally been one soul and that each was the other’s beshert, intended one – soul-mate. Their love was so deep and sustaining, they couldn’t imagine it otherwise.

Together Moshe and Miriam parented four children who in turn brought them nine grandchildren and then six great-grandchildren – L’dor vador.

Last summer, Moshe and Miriam, now living in Los Angeles and together for 70 years, aging and frail, moved in with their youngest daughter and son-in law, Debi and Ofer, and their four children Orly, Danielle, Aleeza, and Bradley, members of our congregation for many years. Their youngest two, twins, had been preparing to become bar and bat mitzvah yesterday on Shabbat Parashat Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32).

Sadly, we buried Moshe at 3 PM on Friday just before Shabbat. The family attended Kabbalat Shabbat services to say Kaddish. Tradition discourages public mourning on the Sabbath.

Yesterday morning, despite the family’s loss of its loving and gentle patriarch, convened to celebrate Aleeza’s and Bradley’s b’nai mitzvah.

My teacher and friend, Rabbi Larry Hoffman of HUC-JIR in NY, wrote a moving d’var Torah this week about the juxtaposition of death and life and how that theme played itself out in the rebellion of Korach and the subsequent sprouting of Aaron’s staff:

“Moses placed the staffs before God in the tent of the covenant law. The next day Moses entered the tent and saw that Aaron’s staff, which represented the tribe of Levi, had not only sprouted but had budded, blossomed and produced almonds.” (Numbers 17:7-8)

Rabbi Hoffman explained that the great shoot of promise exemplified in the buds, blossoms and almonds of Aaron’s priestly staff, is regenerative and always bends towards the sun. “Judaism elects that image,” Larry wrote as its preferred image, not the image of destruction, bitterness and negativity.

How true this has been in Moshe’s and Miriam’s family experience.

Moshe was a positive thinking man. He mourned the destruction of his family quietly, deeply, with reverence, and dignity, but he looked forward, started his life over (as did so many survivors of the Shoah), sought continually every day to rediscover the good in life and to celebrate it, showing love and being generous in spirit to all, taking sustenance from Jewish tradition and Jewish faith, and delighting in the joy of family.

An unknown poet has written:

“Four things are beautiful beyond belief:
The pleasant weakness that comes after pain,
The radiant greenness that comes after rain,
The deepened faith that follows after grief,
And the re-awakening to love again.”

Zecher tzadik livracha. May the memory of this righteous man, Moshe Tabak, be a blessing.

On “d”emocrats and Demagogues, Servant-leaders and Hubris – D’var Torah Korach

19 Friday Jun 2015

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According to the latest Rasmussen Report national telephone survey of American voters, just 12% of likely U.S. voters rate the job Congress does as good or excellent. That is little different from a month ago but slightly better than the 8% approval measured a year ago. Most voters (58%) think Congress is doing a poor job.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why this is so. The US Congress is dysfunctional because too many of our representatives refuse to compromise and find solutions to the nation’s many problems. They act instead according to the laws of the jungle and abide by the philosophy that ends justify means, might makes right, cynicism trumps hope, and power is an ultimate “good.”

There are, of course, many decent servant-leaders in Washington, D.C. and around the country who, despite formidable obstacles, seek to do well and work diligently on behalf of the common good.

This week’s Torah portion Korach considers both kinds of leaders as it tells the story of a major rebellion led by Korach and 250 Israelite leaders against Moses and Aaron.

Korach was Moses’ and Aaron’s first cousin (Exodus 6:18-21), a member of the priestly class and part of the ruling elite. The leaders around him are described as “Princes of the congregation, the elect men of the assembly, men of renown.” (Numbers 16:2) The Talmud says of them “that they had a name recognized in the whole world.” (Bavli, Sanhedrin 110a). These were not outside agitators or riff-raff. They were the ruling establishment.

Despite his elevated status, however, Korach and his close familial relationship with the Prophet Moses and High Priest Aaron, Korach wasn’t at all satisfied with his station. He challenged Aaron’s exclusive right to the priesthood, and his cohorts Dathan and Abiram questioned Moses’ leadership. Korach’s goal was to unseat the divinely chosen leaders, and he appealed to the people to overthrow them using religious language and espousing the importance of rotating leaders in office, all of whom he said were equally worthy.

“And they assembled themselves together against Moses and … Aaron, and said, ‘You [Moses and Aaron] take too much upon yourself, seeing that all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them.’”

In actuality, tradition says of Korach that he and his minions weren’t “democrats” (small “d”) at all; they were demagogues who manipulated and incited the masses for their narrow self-interests.

Rabbi Moshe Weiler, the founder of liberal Judaism in South Africa, has written:“Theirs [i.e. Korach and his cohorts] was the pursuit of kavod, honor and power, in the guise of sanctity and love of the masses.”

Onkolos (2nd century C.E.), in his Aramaic translation of the two opening words of the portion, Vayikach Korach (“And Korach took”) wrote It’peleg Korach (“And Korach separated himself”), suggesting that he didn’t consider himself to be one with the people nor was he interested in serving their interests.

Korach sought power for power’s sake and he ignited a controversy based on ignoble motivations and nefarious goals leading to the devastation of the community. In the end, the earth swallowed Korach and his rebel comrades alive and sent them to Sheol in a spectacular inferno. (Numbers 16:31-35)

Korach’s eish ha-mach’loket (“fire of controversy”) became an eish o-che-lah (“a devouring fire”) that augured doom.

“The Sayings of the Sages” (5:21) reflects upon Korach’s rebellion and distinguishes between two very different kinds of controversy. The first is healthy and useful, pursued for the sake of heaven (l’shem sha-ma-yim) that brings about blessing and a stronger community. The second is a pernicious fight not based on lasting values that brings about disunity and destruction. Hillel and Shammai (1st century BCE) embodied the former, and Korach and his legions the latter.

Korach was essentially a cynic. Moses was the opposite, the humble servant-leader.

Who are we? Do we resonate with the voice of Korach or the spirit of Moses?

Who are our leaders? Are they interested only in power or in the common good?

Rabbi Rachel Cowan opines that though every individual may, indeed, aspire to be like Moses, Korach lives within our hearts too.

In thinking about ourselves and our leaders, the words of Maimonides remind us of the importance of pursuing higher virtue: “The ideal public leader is one who holds seven attributes: wisdom, humility, reverence, loathing of money, love of truth, love of humanity, and a good name.” (Hilchot Sanhedrin 2:7)

Upon reading this my brother once asked me, “Do you know anyone in public service who measures up to this high standard?”

I responded, “Not quite – but every public servant ought to aspire to do so.”

Who Are You in this Fourth Stage of Life? D’var Torah Bemidbar

22 Friday May 2015

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Mi at – “Who are you?” (Ruth 3:9) – So asked Boaz. It’s a question that every human being asks from time to time. Especially on this weekend of Shavuot, of the great meeting between Israel and God on the mountain, we ask ourselves individually and as a community – “Who am I/Who are we?” in this time and place, at this stage of our lives, as individuals, as a people, and as a nation.

This Shabbat we begin the fourth book of the five books of Moses, Bemidbar (Numbers; lit. “In the wilderness”). If the Book of Genesis is about human and tribal origins and beginnings (mirroring infancy and childhood), and Exodus is about human freedom (representing the driving force amongst adolescents), and Leviticus is about the need to adjust to the rules and regulations imposed on society in order to live productively (characteristic of young adulthood), then Bemidbar is about the mid-life journey.

In this fourth book we see that the bloom is off the marriage between God and Israel. Doubt, disillusionment and struggle define our people’s lives. We rebel. Our faith is broken. We want to be somewhere else, anywhere else if it brings relief and renewal. We confront our limitations and mortality. We wonder if this is all there is. We’re caught in the unfettered and cruel desert, a vast wilderness of silence. Our hearts pound. The quiet thunders in our ears. We’re alone and afraid. We yearn for safety and solace.

The wilderness of Sinai is far more than a physical location. Bemidbar is a human wasteland, where everything falls apart. We wander, without a shared vision, without shared values, or shared words. Leaders of every kind attempt to lead; but no one is listening and each is marching to the sound of his/her own drummer. Driven by fear and jealousy, ego and greed, the people are moved by basic things; hunger, thirst and lust. God’s transcendence is elusive. The book is noisy, frustrating and painful.

Rabbi Eddie Feinstein has written (“The Wilderness Speaks”, The Modern Men’s Torah Commentary, pages 202-203):

“Bemidbar may be the world’s strongest counterrevolutionary tract. It is a rebuke to all those who believe in the one cataclysmic event that will forever free humans from their chains. It is a response to those who foresee that out of the apocalypse of political or economic revolution will emerge the New Man, or the New American, or the New Jew. Here is the very people who stood in the very presence of God at Sinai…who heard Truth from the mouth of God…and still, they are unchanged, unrepentant, chained to their fears. The dream is beyond them. God offers them freedom, and they clamor for meat…”

L’havdil – I am not Moses, nor has my experience been his remotely, yet as a congregational rabbi I understand our greatest leader’s burden of leadership. In the course of Bemidbar “everyone in [Moses’] life will betray him. Miriam and Aaron –  his family members – betray him, murmuring against him. His tribe rebels against him… his people betray him in the incident of the ten spies… and finally, even God betrays him [when he hit the rock and lost his dream of ever entering the Promised Land].” (Ibid)

Numbers is a book about burdens, not blessings. Again, Rabbi Feinstein:

“Everyone has found himself in that excruciating moment when words don’t work – when we try and say the right thing, to heal and to help, but each word brings more hurt. Everyone has tasted the bitterness of betrayal – when no one stands with us, when those who should know better stand against us. Everyone has felt the deep disappointment of the dream turned sour. It could have been so good! I should have turned out so differently! Where did I go wrong? Everyone has tortured himself with the torment Moses feels in Bemidbar. And that’s the ultimate lesson. Listen to the Torah’s wisdom: the agony, the self-doubt, the frustration are part of the journey through the wilderness. Anyone who has ever worn Moses’ shoes or carried his staff – knows the anguish of Bemidbar. But know this, too: You’re not alone. You’re not the first. You’re not singled out. And most of all, you’re not finished. The torturous route through the wilderness does not come to an end. There was hope for Moses. There is hope for us.” (Ibid)

Where does hope come? In the turning of the heart, the turning of a page, the discovery of shared values and shared purpose, of shared life, shared listening, and shared doing.

In Deuteronomy, the fifth and last of the five books of Moses (representing our senior years when we begin to integrate who we are and rediscover our greater purpose), we’ll hear “Sh’ma Yisrael – Listen O Israel.”

In Devarim (Deuteronomy), “words” return and we’re able to share as a people in listening to God’s voice and to each other. In this, there is hope yet to come.

Shabbat shalom and Hag Sameach.

Hearing God’s Voice and the Importance of a Dot! – D’var Torah Naso

29 Thursday May 2014

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

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“Va-y’hi b’yom kalot Moshe l’hakim et ha-mish’kan – On the day that Moses finished setting up the Tabernacle, he anointed and consecrated it and all its furnishings ….” (Numbers 7:1)

This final chapter of Parashat Naso then lists in detail the names of the tribes and their offerings, concluding in verse 89:

“When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he [Moses] would hear the Voice addressing him from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Pact between the two cherubim; thus He (God) spoke to him (Moses).”

All seems straightforward enough, but there’s an odd grammatical irregularity involving a single “dot” (called a dagesh) in one of the letters in one of the words in this final verse that doesn’t seem to belong.

The verb l’dabeir (Hebrew root – daled-bet-resh – “to speak”) appears three times in this verse:

“When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak (L’da-beir) with Him [God], he [Moses] would hear the Voice addressing him (m’da-beir) from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Pact between the two cherubim [winged angels]; thus He (God) spoke (va-y’da-beir) to him (Moses).”

Grammarians teach that the verb “l’da-beir – to speak” is a piel construction. Every piel verb includes a dagesh (a dot) in the middle letter of the three-letter Hebrew root sometimes changing the sound of the letter and sometimes not – in this case the dagesh changes the vet to a bet. However, the verb m’da-beir as it appears here has two dageshim, one where we expect it (in the middle letter bet) and the other in the first letter of the three-letter root, daled, where we do NOT expect to see it.

A little thing; an insignificant thing not worth worrying about! Right!?

Not so fast. There are twenty such occurrences in the Hebrew Bible of a dagesh appearing in the first letter where it doesn’t normally belong, and in six of those times the dagesh is in this particular verb – daled-bet-resh. (Genesis 32:29, Exodus 34:33, 1 Samuel 25:17, 2 Samuel 14:13, and Psalms 34:14; 52:5. I am grateful to Rabbi Michael Curasick who pointed this out.)

What does this dagesh-dot indicate in our verse – m’da-beir? That’s the question, and as you will soon see, that little dot changes the meaning of the verse itself and shines a theological light on what might have really taken place between God and Moses in the Tent of Meeting.

Abraham ibn Ezra (11th century Spain) and Rashi (11th century France) both conclude that this verb m’da-beir is not in the piel verbal construction at all, but rather is a hit’pa-el verb, and so the dagesh in the first letter daled isn’t an emphasis mark but rather stands in for a missing letter – tav – making the original word not m’da-beir, but mit’da-beir.

Piel verbs tend to be active and intensive verbs – hit’pa-el verbs tend to be reflexive. If Ibn Ezra and Rashi are right, and it makes sense that they are given the twenty other occasions where this occurs and the special relationship between God and Moses, our verse doesn’t mean that “[God’s] voice spoke (m’da-beir) to Moses …” but rather “God was speaking to Himself and Moses overheard.” (Rashi)

Rabbi Bachya ben Asher (13th century Spain) explains further that God intended that the words He spoke in the tent of meeting were meant only for Moses to overhear, and that no one else, not Aaron, not any of the tribal chieftains could do so, thus demonstrating “the enormous spiritual stature of Moses compared to all other subsequent prophets…that Moses had attained the ultimate level of spirituality that is possible for a human being to attain while alive on earth.” (Rabbeinu Bachya, translated by Eliahu Munk, vol. 6, p. 1955)

Everett Fox (The Five Books of Moses – The Schocken Bible, Volume 1, p. 695) translates m’da-beir as a “voice continually-speaking,” as though Moses walked into the Tent and the radio was on all day long.

There are several lessons here for us?

First, none of us is a Moses, and whether or not we can hear God’s voice or not is irrelevant to the truth that God is “continually-speaking” not only in the Tent of Meeting, but everywhere.

Second, it is consequently upon us to strive always to evolve spiritually, to attune ourselves intently to every sound around us, however slight, to listen carefully for God’s voice in the multiplicity of ways that are possible, as well as to our own inner voice and to the voices of others.

And finally, hearing ourselves and hearing each other more acutely may be the path for us to be able to hear God’s voice too. After all, does not God’s voice speak through each one of us?

Shabbat shalom!