Imposter Syndrome, a GPS & Bo

Do you think it’s normal to suffer from imposter syndrome when you’ve just been ordained as a rabbi?

Maybe.

Especially over the past ten years, as I’ve prepared to become a rabbi, I’ve felt like I had to prove that I could be one.

I continually felt like I’d never match up to those who had grown up with this stuff.

When I was in Colorado for my ordination, I woke up in a panic in the middle of the night in my hotel room. I was dreaming that the next day I was being ordained—but it had already happened!!

Last night I dreamt that all my personal identification and money was stolen by a taxi driver who took my wallet.

I didn’t know where he was taking me, and when I asked for my money, he gave me fake bills that were pieces of folded, painted cloth.

I insisted that he let me out so I could find my own way, and when he did, I didn’t even know what city I was in.

I didn’t have a GPS to help me, either.

So here I am, and it looks like I’m still questioning if I'm worthy, even after I’ve been ordained.

Moses, too, questions his validity as the leader of the Israelites to freedom.

As Avivah Zornberg points out, Pharaoh is effectively his grandfather.

Talk about feeling like an imposter!

Moses is caught between being the birth child of a Hebrew woman and the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter.

He has grown up in Pharaoh’s palace in the lap of luxury. Why wouldn’t he question his legitimacy as the leader of his people?

Is he even sure who his people are?

We might see Moses’ inner conflict about his identity sometimes play out like that of a teenager trying to assert his independence.

There’s an interaction between him and Pharaoh right before the last plague is announced where Pharaoh yells at him; “Let me not see your face again!” to which Moses responds, “Don’t worry, you won’t!” and he storms out.

And God?

What about His imposter syndrome?

From the beginning of Exodus, God spends a lot of time proving himself and his worthiness as the greatest god of all.

Plague after plague fails to produce the effect God aspires to.

Yet, He also does a fair amount of self-sabotage, hardening Pharaoh’s heart repeatedly.

But perhaps there’s a purpose and a message in this.

There’s a Hasidic teaching that says that God hides the Divine spark from humans because we can’t handle it; it’s too overwhelming to us.

I love the midrash Rabbi Shefa Gold tells or some jealous angels who are asked to hide the spark of the Divine in the world (in her book, Torah Journeys; the Inner Path to the Promised Land):

Where shall these angels hide the spark of the Divine, they ask each other?

"Let’s put it atop the highest mountain,” offers one.

“No,” says another, “The Human is very ambitious; he will find it there.”

“Well then, let’s bury it beneath the deepest sea.”

“That won’t work either,” another chimes in. “The human is very resourceful. She will even find it there.”

After a moment’s thought the wisest angel says, “I know. Put it inside the Human heart. They will never look there.”

Shefa uses this story to explain God saying to Moses, “Bo! Come to Pharaoh.”

For her, the implication is that God is waiting for us inside the heart of Pharaoh, which is our own heart as well: underneath the hardened, heavy shell with its unhealed grief acquired from life; “…you must come if you are to know Me, if you are to find your freedom.”

She challenges us to “acknowledge the hard shell of a self-image that has become too small” so we can soften the hard surface.

If we can soften the hard surface, perhaps we can uncover the darkness and allow some light in.

The darkness in our hearts is reflected not only in Pharaoh’s heart, but in the plagues of this week’s Parsha.

There are three plagues of darkness, as Avivah Zornberg explains:

“The locusts ‘cover the eye of the earth, so that it cannot be seen’ (10:5); the plague of darkness, which is palpable,’ ‘the darkness shall be felt’…they did not see one another, and they could not stand up form a sitting position” (19:21, 23); while the plague of the firstborn happens at midnight…the word for night is repeated with a redundant and subliminal insistence.”

Darkness causes the greatest fear, with a total paralysis; those enveloped by it can not even move.

Yet it seems that the darkest of the plagues is the death of the firstborn in every single Egyptian home; the cries that can be heard are the pain of loss, a darkness so deep, they could be heard all over Egypt, even in the palace—because there was death there as well.

It is only then that Pharaoh finally relents, for this pain is even too much for Pharaoh’s heart.

If we use Shefa Gold’s analogy about “a self-image that has become too small,” Bo l’Paraoh might be an invitation to Moses to decide who he really is and represents once and for all; it might be God saying, you will keep coming back to this inner conflict of your identity until you confront the darkness that is in Pharaoh’s heart—which reflects your own.

Pharaoh is furious that Moses refuses to accept his terms to leave women, children, and cattle behind in Egypt while going out to sacrifice to the Hebrew god.

But Moses has insisted enough (and the plagues have worn him down enough) that Pharaoh comes to the point of accepting that Moses will get his way; the women and children and livestock will leave with him to travel three days’ distance.

As part of the work of freeing ourselves of the darkness of Pharaoh’s heart, Shefa Gold says:

“One of the keys to freedom lies in Moses’ insistence that the whole of the people must be freed together”—including the feminine and child parts, for Moses has refused to leave behind the women and children; “to be free is to be whole and integrated,” including our animal selves. Without all of us, “we cannot serve God.”

The darkness in Pharaoh’s heart is the darkness in ours that returns again and again.

And the darkness that surrounds the Egyptians is the same darkness that we also are constantly striving to escape.

By accepting the darkness as part of us that we need to open to and confront, we are opening to the Divine spark hidden beneath it.

Yet, especially we scientifically-minded, “modern,” “Enlightened” people insist that if we can’t see it, touch it, or hear it, it must not exist.

We are not comfortable with not knowing.

But when Moses insists that Pharaoh allow all the Israelites and animals go make a sacrifice to their god, his reasoning is, “We do not know how we will worship God until we get there.” Ex. 10:26 לֹֽא־נֵדַ֗ע מַֽה־נַּעֲבֹד֙ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֔ה עַד־בֹּאֵ֖נוּ שָֽׁמָּה׃

We are always looking for proof.

We look for the miracles and wonders, because they offer some kind of proof of something.

And we should keep looking, and keep uncovering those hard layers, seeking to bring light to our hearts, and to those who need it in our world.

The cries we hear these days, if we allow them into our hearts, are sometimes too great to bear.

We often don’t know what we are meant to do or how, whether we are worthy of the job, able to fulfill it, and whether we can solve the problems of darkness and suffering in the world.

And it seems that we have to be okay with not knowing; we don’t have a GPS to guide us through the journey of life—but the messages are there if we open to them along with the light.

And please say, Amen.

Shortness of Breath, Hardness of Hearing, & Va-era

I’m a new person!

I can finally legitimately call myself a rabbi.

But I have a hearing problem.

I’m getting better, but I’ve struggled my whole adult life to listen to my body.

No sooner had I gotten off the plane than I felt I needed to get “back to work,” make up for “lost time,” “catch up.”

But the fact is, I’ve been home almost a week, and I’m just starting to land now.

I had to catch myself on work while also remembering the vows I’d made to myself before leaving.

I remembered the mikvah (ritual bath) I went to in preparation for Smicha (ordination), the week prior to going away.

The tradition is to dunk your body three times.

With each dunk, I stated an intention (kavannah) for this new life I would entering as a first attempt to let the living waters wash these things away.

One of them was “rushing.”

Maybe the mikvah did something, because at least I remembered.

I remembered the shortness of breath with which I tend to live, especially when I’m embarking on something new.

And there’s always so much to do upon returning from a trip; house cleaning, food shopping, laundry (not to mention the mess left behind by plumbers after a backed-up sink—not my fault!).

I vowed to pay attention to my breath and my body—to “listen.”

And I landed, but I didn't crash the way I used to, getting so sick I couldn’t function for a week.

This week’s Torah portion begins with God speaking to Moses, introducing Himself again as the One who appeared (וָאֵרָ֗א/Va-era) to his forefathers, but who did not make Himself known as YHVH (Yod Hey Vov Hey).

But now He remembers His covenant with this people, He has heard the groans of suffering under bondage, He will take them to be His people, and now He will bring them out of this land and into the land He vowed to Moses’ forefathers.

But when Moses relayed this to the children of Israel, they would not listen, for they were קֹּ֣צֶר ר֔וּחַ/kotzer ruakh: short of breath, impatient of spirit, of anguished soul. (Ex. 6:9)

Their spirits are restricted.

When people are oppressed, they are breathless and unable to take in air deeply.

And they’re impatient.

And anguished.

This is true with illness as well.

In such a state, we are unable to listen.

Moses claims to be unable to speak, for he is of uncircumcised of lips עֲרַ֣ל שְׂפָתַ֔יִם/Aral s’fatayim.

This implies that there’s extra flesh around his lips.

Therefore, he explains, the Israelites will not listen (Ex. 6:30).

How can they listen to him? And how will Pharaoh?

It’s true that neither do.

What is it that prevents Moses himself from hearing God’s call, to the point where it makes God angry?

There is a famous legend of Moses as a three-year-old in Pharaoh’s palace. He takes his “grandfather’s” crown from his head and puts it on his own. Pharaoh’s advisors suggest killing Moses, for clearly this is a sign of future usurpation.

But the angel Gabriel comes to save the day; posing as an Egyptian sage, he proposes putting the child to a test; Moses is, after all, still a baby.

Two objects are placed before him, one of which is a burning coal.

The burning coal ends up in Moses’ mouth, his lips are burned, and scar tissue remains. (The Particulars of Rapture, Avivah Zornberg, p. 89-90)

And though he has no memory of it, the trauma of this experience leaves its mark.

Moses can not make himself heard. He is traumatized and can not speak.

The Israelites in their oppression cannot listen.

Pharaoh, in his belief that he is a demi-god, refuses or is unable to hear, despite many signs proving God’s existence; plague after plague fails to soften Pharaoh’s heart.

Yet, despite Moses’ protests, and God’s assignment of his brother Aaron as spokesperson for him, Moses does speak to Pharaoh—again and again, according to the text.

I don’t need to be a literal slave to live with shortness of breath, impatience or an anguished soul.

I don’t even need to be sick.

Moses’ speaking to Pharaoh, despite his impediment and despite the fear he must overcome to face his “grandfather,” is a signal that, despite our trauma, we must learn to make ourselves heard.

And despite our fear, we must learn to listen.

It’s natural. We have different levels of consciousness, as we know from psychology, and as Hassidic master, the Kedushat Levi knew as well.

We repress inner voices, traumas, and then we can not listen, hear, or even sometimes speak.

Sometimes we need others who will speak for us, and sometimes even listen for us. The S’fat Emet quotes from psalms, “Listen, my people, that I may speak (50:7),” which means, “Your listening will enable me to speak.” It is the listener who creates the act of speech. (Zornberg, p. 84)

God has made Himself known to Moses’ forefathers as El Shaddai, the nurturing one.

But he shows up here as YHVH, the ineffable, the one whose name cannot be pronounced or spoken.

We may not be able to name God, but we can have faith that God’s voice will come through us, and through those around us.

And like in a mikvah, with our intentions and vows to change our way of being, with our desire to wash away the obstacles that keep us from living fully, from breathing fully, from listening and hearing, we can continue the work of reaching below the surface to uncover deeper levels of consciousness.

Then we can truly free our spirits.

And slowly we can liberate ourselves and our people.

And say Amen.

Keeping Things Real & Sh’mot

I’m officially a rabbi now!!!

Just last night I got back from Colorado where the ordination ceremony took place!

What I experienced there goes beyond words. That’s how wonderful it was.

But I can tell you that we sang and danced.

And received so many blessings, I can’t even count them.

I led Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat, and the energy was so strong, my hands were vibrating.

Sunday I spoke at the ordination ceremony.

I feel like my speech summed up my life, my upbringing, and my Jewish journey.

I feel similarly about the beginning of Exodus; it sums up the Jewish journey, and the Jewish people.

This first Parsha is the beginning of our enslavement, but it’s also the beginning of liberation.

It’s about resistance through feigning helplessness, hiding, speaking up or remaining silent.

It’s about hope, fear, doubt, lack of belief in oneself and others—and God.

It’s about being sent, turning away, and turning towards.

It’s about infighting, defending, running away, returning.

It’s about very real things.

Here’s my speech (which you can read here, or find on my Facebook page):

“I like keeping things real, and here’s something real:

“Our Torah is homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic, patriarchal, sexist.

“The God of our Torah: violent, short-tempered, punishing, male, reigning plagues upon a people he claims to be his ‘Am Segula,’ his treasured people.

“Our forefathers and mothers: liars, cheats, schemers. 

“And we’re done with the patriarchy, right? 

“If hearing all this makes you uncomfortable, it shouldn’t. Because our forefathers–and I do mean fathers—gave us permission to challenge and argue with Torah. And with God. 

“Moses, Abraham, the daughters of Tzlofchad, argue with God–and God listens–sometimes. 

“We are Yisrael, God-wrestlers. 

“Our tradition expects it. 

“But let’s be real; our tradition, and in some communities still, gives permission to only some, and only so far.  

“For this reason, for my parents, it was shameful to be ‘religious.’

“‘Spirituality? What’s that?’ ‘Why can’t you just be culturally Jewish and bring the values of Judaism into politics?’ 

“They did that. 

“Yes. And they both died in despair. 

“But they were right that a world that erased the tapestry of cultures and languages, one dominated by American consumerist culture, was a world devoid of beauty.

“What they didn’t know about was the beauty of Judaism and how it figured into that tapestry.

“They only knew Torah as a story of liberation. 

“They didn’t know that its flawed characters reflect our own character, and that they give us a chance to work on ourselves.

“They didn’t know that the stories of these flawed characters taught our ancestors about endurance, and gave them strength to get through. 

“They didn’t know about our mystical tradition, of black fire and white light.

"They didn’t know that the Divine Flow that flows from Eden is always available, never ceasing, through our Torah.

“They didn’t know that individual words with the same consonants but different vowels could mean something totally different: that river can mean light–or maybe they’re the same thing. 

“And when I feel overwhelmed by the despair in the world today, and I dream of escaping to a mountaintop and living out my days in peace and tranquility, chanting my time away, I remember the climate crisis, and the fact that there is no safe place to escape to. 

“And then I turn to my Jewish practice and Torah, to my flawed inheritance, for guidance, uplifting and hope. And I remember my passion for bringing this to other people, because there is no escaping. 

“And I remember my Jewish obligation to engage with the world, this world, now, to make things better for future generations, for my own children. I remember my obligation to take care of them. I remember my Jewish obligation to be positive and hopeful. Because if I lose hope, how can they remain hopeful? 

“We can appreciate the changes that have happened over the generations, and the more recent tradition of bringing more progressive voices into Torah interpretation.

“And we can continue to co-create a renewed Judaism that includes everyone, and new ways of being that builds on the endurance of our ancestors. 

“I think my parents would understand now.”

May we have and continue to build on the endurance of our ancestors, whatever tradition they come from.

And say Amen.

Beginnings, Endings, & Whole-Hearted Walking: Va-y’hi

As I get ready to fully step into my new role as a rabbi this Sunday, I come to the ending of a long journey, and of new beginnings as a Jewish leader.

In Torah this week, with the last chapters of Genesis, we come to the ending of beginnings.

Va-Y’hi is about facing the temporality of our stay, our sojourn (m’gurey), as Jacob puts it, on our dear planet Earth.

It’s about establishing the Israelite people and its leadership going forward.

But it’s also about memory.

The Parsha begins with Jacob’s imminent death, and ends with his son Joseph’s death.

Jacob has been in Egypt for seventeen years (the same age Joseph was when he was thrown into a pit and sold into slavery).

He summons Joseph and makes him swear an oath not to bury him in Egypt; he must take him up to the land of his forefathers and mothers and bury him with them, in the cave of Machpelah.

Next, Jacob informs him that Joseph’s two sons, Menasheh and Ephraim, now belong to Jacob.

And, he does the thing that has happened repeatedly in Genesis; he gives leadership to the one who does not have primogeniture.

Defying Joseph’s correction, he crosses his arms and places his hands on the children’s heads opposite to what is deemed the “correct” order.

Jacob takes these children “back to Israel.”

Then he calls in the rest of his sons in order to bless them.

But instead of blessing who they might become, more accurately, he describes their characters, and decides their destiny.

Reuben, his first born, is stripped of his birthright for having (in a premature and improper manner) “taken” his place by sleeping with his father’s wife (as observed by Leon Kass in The Beginning of Wisdom).

Simeon and Levi are too violent (they were responsible for slaughtering the entire population of Shechem after their sister Dinah’s rape).

That leaves Judah: the strong, level-headed one who made an effort to save Joseph, the one who recognized his responsibility to his daughter-in-law Tamar.

Thus, Jacob publicly de-thrones Joseph as the leader of his people, placing Judah at the top.

Says Leon Kass:

“In this way, Jacob, at the end of his life—like his father, Isaac—confesses his error regarding his sons…

“But unlike Isaac, Jacob does so in public, before all his sons…

“Joseph, it appears, had only half understood his youthful ‘Egyptian’ dream about the sheaves of wheat: his brothers did indeed bow down to him, but only in Egypt…

“In Israel, the brothers—including Joseph’s sons—will be led by Judah.” (p. 648)

Despite all the preparations for dying, only Joseph seems unprepared for his father’s death, throwing himself upon Jacob’s face and weeping loudly over his body.

Here again he is set apart from his brothers.

(And what are his tears about?)

To prove his father’s point about leadership, Joseph strangely does not proceed immediately to carry through on his vow.

Instead, he puts his own spin on things—the Egyptian spin.

Joseph calls the Egyptian physicians to mummify Jacob, who is mourned in Egyptian style.

Tellingly, it is Israel, the name used to define the future people, (not Jacob) whom the physicians mummify. (p. 651)

Only once the Egyptian mourning period is up, Joseph cautiously sends word to Pharaoh of the vow he made to his father.

To Pharaoh, Joseph timidly asks permission (“let me go up”) to bury Jacob’s body.

But he keeps some important details to himself: the cave where his other ancestors are, and not least of all, Jacob’s insistence, “not in Egypt.”

And he makes sure Pharaoh knows he will be back!

Then Joseph and his brothers, with their father’s body, accompanied by all the Egyptian servants in full regalia and incredible fanfare, with chariots and all, go on a round-about journey to reach the cave (what’s that about?).

Only at the end do the brothers finally carry their father’s coffin on their shoulders, Israelite style, and place it in the cave.

The death of their father leads the brothers to become fearful again at the possibility of Joseph continuing to harbor bad feelings towards them and taking revenge.

When they approach him, asking forgiveness, Joseph continues to set himself apart, as noted by Kass;

“Joseph manages at the same time to appear pious and hubristic.” (p. 657)

Kass explains that the brothers had appealed to Joseph on account of their father’s request to forgive them (a made-up story?);

But “Joseph, as is so often the case, functions on two levels, and his response, albeit generous, is also alienating.”

For Joseph had (generously) said, “Fear not; for am I in the place of God? And you, though you meant evil against me, God meant it for good.”

“Speaking as a human being, Joseph is unforgiving…

“Speaking as the self-appointed spokeman for God, Joseph insists that there is nothing to forgive.

“However much Joseph’s speech succeeds in allaying his brothers’ fears, he preserves his distant stance…Joseph, to the last, keeps himself apart.”

As the Parsha and the book of Genesis come to a close, we finally come to Joseph’s death, fifty years after Jacob dies.

“Joseph…acknowledges in the end that not he but God is the true savior of his father’s house. God, remembering His promises, will lead the exodus ‘out of this land’ and will bring them to the land promised to the patriarchs…

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יוֹסֵף֙ אֶל־אֶחָ֔יו אָנֹכִ֖י מֵ֑ת וֵֽאלֹהִ֞ים פָּקֹ֧ד יִפְקֹ֣ד אֶתְכֶ֗ם וְהֶעֱלָ֤ה אֶתְכֶם֙ מִן־הָאָ֣רֶץ הַזֹּ֔את אֶל־הָאָ֕רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר נִשְׁבַּ֛ע לְאַבְרָהָ֥ם לְיִצְחָ֖ק וּֽלְיַעֲקֹֽב׃

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land to the land promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” (Gen. 50:24)

“…But if God will remember the House of Israel, who will remember Joseph? And what place will he have in the world of the Promised Land?” (p. 658)

In his final speeches, Joseph gets his brothers to swear that they will remember him, when God remembers them, and that they will take his bones out of Egypt:

וַיַּשְׁבַּ֣ע יוֹסֵ֔ף אֶת־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לֵאמֹ֑ר פָּקֹ֨ד יִפְקֹ֤ד אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶתְכֶ֔ם וְהַעֲלִתֶ֥ם אֶת־עַצְמֹתַ֖י מִזֶּֽה׃

So Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here.” (Gen. 50:25)

Joseph, observes Kass, dies alone.

There is no public mourning, no funeral described.

He is embalmed and placed in a coffin.

As we know, embalming prevents decay; it is an attempt to beautify and preserve the body.

It is an imagining of immortality.

Burial, on the other hand, accepts that we are dust to dust.

“The way of Israel is the way of memory, keeping alive not the bodies of the dead but their ever-living legacy in relation to the every-living God…who later summoned Father Abraham and his descendants to ‘walk before Me and be wholehearted.’”

Thus ends Leon Kass in The Beginning of Wisdom. (p.659)

If the way of Israel is the way of memory, and Joseph remembers his fathers, how does Joseph want to be remembered?

How is he remembered?

How do we want to be remembered?

In what ways do we inadvertently set ourselves apart?

If “God” wants us to walk before God and be wholehearted, how do we do that?

What is the beginning of our wisdom?

How do we begin to be wise?

One way to become wise is by doing things like writing our own Viduy, our last confession, and our own will, not of material goods to be passed on, but our legacy on a different level—on the level of Israel, the highest self that goes beyond the material.

Or we can write our own eulogy; how do we each want to be remembered?

Because how we want to be remembered is aspirational, like being Israel as opposed to Jacob.

Like Jacob, we most often live from our lower selves, but sometimes we rise above and become Israel.

The more we practice, the better we’ll get.

We’re a work in progress.

So—please post blessings for me for my ordination, but also for the world in answer to these questions.

And I’ll say Amen!

The Truth of Your Life & Vayigash

This week’s Torah portion makes me think of how our (American/”Western”) culture approaches life and death.

There’s an obsession with preserving life.

Especially with our advancement in medical science; no one should have to die, even if they’re old and infirm.

We cry out at the injustice of it—how much more so for the young, as our definition of “young” gets older and older.

It’s popular to “celebrate life” instead of mourning death; “They wouldn’t have wanted us to be sad.”

The result of this attitude is that we resist looking back over our lives—for fear of…being sad?

But if we don’t face death, we can’t face life.

Then, I ask, what about the wisdom we acquire through living?

And what about the long view of the future, not just our individual lives, but what we pass on, including the wisdom that comes of our mistakes?

Vayigash is about taking the long view.

It’s also about facing our mistakes—or denying them.

In the long story of Joseph and his brothers, the very life of the Jewish people hangs in the balance.

Vayigash begins with Joseph’s brother Judah coming forward not only to plead, but to challenge Joseph.

The brothers are at risk of losing their youngest, Benjamin, to slavery; Joseph has been playing a nasty game with them through the famine.

Previously, he had sent them home after secretly replacing the money they’d brought to pay for grain, leaving them bewildered and terrified: What can he, this highest of Egyptian officials, want of them?

This last time, Joseph had snuck a special goblet, one meant for divination, into Benjamin’s bag, and gone after them to accuse them of stealing.

In response, Judah had offered himself along with his brothers as slaves, to which Joseph cruelly has said;

חָלִ֣ילָה לִּ֔י מֵעֲשׂ֖וֹת זֹ֑את הָאִ֡ישׁ אֲשֶׁר֩ נִמְצָ֨א הַגָּבִ֜יעַ בְּיָד֗וֹ ה֚וּא יִהְיֶה־לִּ֣י עָ֔בֶד וְאַתֶּ֕ם עֲל֥וּ לְשָׁל֖וֹם אֶל־אֲבִיכֶֽם׃

Khalila li me’asot zot ha’ish asher nimtza hagavi’ya b’yado hu yih’yeh li aved v’atem alu l’shalom el avikhem:

“Far be it from me to act thus! Only the one in whose possession the goblet was found shall be my slave; the rest of you go back in peace to your father.” (Gen. 44:17)

Why would he do such a thing to his favorite brother, Benjamin? And to his father? What was his plan?

The threat to the brothers’ returning to their father without Jacob’s “only” son, the remaining of his beloved Rachel, is so great that Judah steps forward to make a plea.

Thus begins the Parsha.

Judah makes the speech of his life (and of Genesis), one so long and expertly delivered, that Joseph’s heartstrings are torn, causing him to break down in front of his brothers and admit the truth of his identity.

His sobs and cries are so loud, they can be heard all over the palace.

His brothers stand silently in shock as Joseph beseeches them to come closer in order to convince them of the truth of his words.

As they slowly overcome their stupor, Joseph is apparently willing to release them of their guilt by stating:

וַיִּשְׁלָחֵ֤נִי אֱלֹהִים֙ לִפְנֵיכֶ֔ם לָשׂ֥וּם לָכֶ֛ם שְׁאֵרִ֖ית בָּאָ֑רֶץ וּלְהַחֲי֣וֹת לָכֶ֔ם לִפְלֵיטָ֖ה גְּדֹלָֽה׃

Vayishlakhani Elohim lifneikhem lasoom lachem sh’eirit ba’aretz ul’hakhayot lakhem lifleyta g’dola:

“God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance.” (45:7)

Joseph insists that his role as savior of his family is ordained by God, so they should not feel badly for having sold him into slavery; he is not going to punish them (any longer?).

In saying so, Joseph is implying that even their negative actions had a positive impact—that even they themselves as his brothers, with all their hateful feelings and actions, were a part of God’s plan!

After everyone has settled down, Joseph arranges for his entire family, near 70 of them, to come down to Egypt and settle in the land of Goshen.

They need bring nothing with them, as per Pharaoh’s decree:

וְעֵ֣ינְכֶ֔ם אַל־תָּחֹ֖ס עַל־כְּלֵיכֶ֑ם כִּי־ט֛וּב כׇּל־אֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם לָכֶ֥ם הֽוּא׃

“And don’t worry about your belongings, for the best of all the land of Egypt shall be yours.” (Gen. 45:20)

Jacob ignores Pharaoh, and brings not only his entire family, but all their wealth acquired in Canaan.

He also does not go directly to Egypt, but makes a detour to Be’er Sheva, the place where Abraham had sworn a covenant with God (21:32), and where God appeared to Isaac (26:23-24).

There, God appears to Jacob in a vision, making a promise to be with Israel.

God reassures him again, as he had so many years before; “Do not to be afraid, for I will make you a great nation; I will be go down to Egypt with you—and bring you back:

אָנֹכִ֗י אֵרֵ֤ד עִמְּךָ֙ מִצְרַ֔יְמָה וְאָנֹכִ֖י אַֽעַלְךָ֣ גַם־עָלֹ֑ה

Anokhi ered imkha mitzrayma v’anokhi a’alkha gam alo. (Gen. 46:4)

Only after making this stop in Be’er Sheva, with a sacrifice to the God of his ancestors, does Jacob continue down to Egypt.

In so doing, says Leon Kass, in his book, The Beginning of Wisdom, Jacob is making a statement; that he is not letting go of the ways of his ancestors.

And so, Jacob goes forward with this vision.

God even reassures Jacob that it will be Joseph who closes his eyes when he dies.

But perhaps Jacob understands that Joseph is already lost to him, for he has not followed Joseph’s instructions as brought to him through his sons.

Kass suspects that he and his sons have also not donned the Egyptian clothing Joseph sends with them.

In truth, Pharaoh intends for the entire family, like Joseph, to be swallowed up by Egyptian culture. The word repeatedly used by Pharaoh is “settling,” rather than “sojourning,” which would imply a more temporary arrangement. (Kass, p. 627)

But when the time comes to bring Jacob before Pharaoh, Jacob neither bows to Pharaoh nor refers to himself as “Your servant.”

And Pharaoh has but one question for the old man:

How old are you?

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר פַּרְעֹ֖ה אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֑ב כַּמָּ֕ה יְמֵ֖י שְׁנֵ֥י חַיֶּֽיךָ׃

“Va’yomer Paro el ya’akov kama y’mei sh’ney khayekha?”

Is Pharaoh comparing himself to Jacob, wondering how a man who is not a demigod can live so long, wonders Kass?

And Jacob, says Kass, catches on quickly.

He immediately begins to speak of how long his life has been, but not nearly as long as his forefathers.

He says his years have been hard, he has suffered much:

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יַעֲקֹב֙ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֔ה יְמֵי֙ שְׁנֵ֣י מְגוּרַ֔י שְׁלֹשִׁ֥ים וּמְאַ֖ת שָׁנָ֑ה מְעַ֣ט וְרָעִ֗ים הָיוּ֙ יְמֵי֙ שְׁנֵ֣י חַיַּ֔י וְלֹ֣א הִשִּׂ֗יגוּ אֶת־יְמֵי֙ שְׁנֵי֙ חַיֵּ֣י אֲבֹתַ֔י בִּימֵ֖י מְגוּרֵיהֶֽם׃

Va’yomer Yaakov el paro, y’mey sh’ney m’guray sh’loshim um’at shana m’at v’ra’im hayu y’mey sh’ney khayay, v’lo hisigu et y’mey sh’ney khayey avotay bi’ymey m’gureyhem:

“And Jacob answered Pharaoh, ‘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 ancestors.’” (Gen. 47:9)

Also, Jacob makes a point of referring to his temporary sojourn on Earth.

Egyptians do not share the budding Israelite people’s concept of temporality, of coming from and returning to dust; Egypt is a land where life is preserved after death through embalming.

Jacob, through his suffering, seems to have acquired the wisdom that what matters is the longevity of his people, not himself as an individual.

This is what makes him Israel in this moment; he now knows that it’s not about heal-grabbing, birthright-stealing, or blessing-appropriation.

He understands the bigger picture. Finally.

He understands that there is something much greater in the Universe than his own particular life.

Here, Jacob rises to the worthiness of his name, his highest self, the one who sees the long view: Israel.

Thus, Jacob speaks to Pharaoh as if he were just another human being, neither demigod nor emperor.

He even bestows blessing upon Pharaoh—not once, but twice—as if Pharaoh were an underling in need of a father’s grace.

It’s translated as “greeting” and “bidding farewell,” but take note of the Hebrew:

וַיָּבֵ֤א יוֹסֵף֙ אֶת־יַֽעֲקֹ֣ב אָבִ֔יו וַיַּֽעֲמִדֵ֖הוּ לִפְנֵ֣י פַרְעֹ֑ה וַיְבָ֥רֶךְ יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֶת־פַּרְעֹֽה׃

Vayavey Yosef et Yaakov aviv vayamideyhu lifney Paro va’y’varekh Yaakov et Paro.

“And Joseph brought his father Jacob and stood him before Pharaoh and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.” (Gen. 47:7)

And:

וַיְבָ֥רֶךְ יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֶת־פַּרְעֹ֑ה וַיֵּצֵ֖א מִלִּפְנֵ֥י פַרְעֹֽה׃

Vay’varekh Yaakov et paro va’yetzei milifney Paro.

“And Jacob blessed Pharaoh and took leave of Pharaoh.” (Gen. 47:10)

Indeed, Jacob is acting like Israel during this time, a true ancestor with his heels dug securely in the ground, this time not grabbing for his own place, but asserting the place of his family and people.

Joseph, on the other hand, proves that he is lost to his father in his Egyptian ways; he is ashamed that they are sheep herders and asks his brothers to lie to Pharaoh.

Much worse, while patting himself on the back, Joseph is unwittingly leading future generations of his people into centuries of slavery by establishing them in Egypt.

As if things couldn’t be worse, by the end of this week’s Parsha, Joseph has created indentured servitude for the entire Egyptian population; first he tells the starving farmers to hand over any silver they have in exchange for grain. When that runs out, they must give up all their livestock, indebted forever more.

As Joseph sends his brothers back home to their father in preparation for their move to Egypt, he tells his them:

אַֽל־תִּרְגְּז֖וּ בַּדָּֽרֶךְ׃

Al tirg’zu badarekh.

“Do not be agitated along the way.” (Gen. 45:24)

If Jacob were to do an honest and detailed life review, as he does only briefly before Pharaoh, he might be able to say that, despite his hard life, or because of it, he learned something about favoritism—that the perpetuation of it does not pay off; he lost that favorite son.

But he might be proud that he stood up to Pharaoh, and that he brought his ways and his god and his possessions with him: that he could teach his children to dig in their heals and hold onto their beliefs and customs rather than grabbing for things that don’t belong to us.

Perhaps he would tell them that from dust we come and to dust we shall return, but it’s endurance that matters.

Perhaps he could teach them about taking the long view instead of getting caught up in the petty stuff of life.

If Joseph were to do an honest life review, some things would be different and others the same.

Perhaps he would wonder about the God-given vision he claimed to have had, and come to an understanding of the difference between short-term personal gain and long-term suffering.

Perhaps now he would understand that it wasn’t just about him, or even only about his family.

Perhaps he would realize the harm he had done his brothers in believing himself superior, and how his own actions led to theirs.

Perhaps he wouldn’t say that what they did had a positive impact, ordained by God.

Perhaps instead, he would say that God doesn’t believe that evil can be for good—and that evil could never be part of God’s plan.

Perhaps he would be ashamed.

If we are ashamed of how we’ve lived our lives, we might resist looking back, no matter how long we’ve lived.

After all, what’s the point? “I can’t fix any of it now.”

Looking back and looking deep allows us to see what we’ve learned through our mistakes and immaturity.

Yes, it can be painful. And sad.

But Joseph was wrong when he told his brothers not to be perturbed on their way home.

Doing an honest life review requires agitation. We are humans. We make mistakes.

To be “Israel,” the one who can take the long view, is an aspiration, just like it is for Jacob, whose name changes back and forth throughout the Parsha.

So let’s give ourselves a break for our mistakes, and also take full responsibility for our actions.

As the Torah tells us later, the harm we commit will be passed on for generations into the future.

By doing honest life review, we can heal that trauma, and bring blessing into the world for the sake of future generations.

And say Amen.

Colors, Divided Souls, Highest Selves, & Mikkeitz

This week we are in part II of the saga of Joseph and His Brothers, as the story is commonly called.

Joseph has been in Pharaoh’s dungeon for two years now; the butler has forgotten him, though Joseph had asked him to remember him to Pharaoh once out and safe.

The Parsha begins with Pharaoh waking from a disturbing dream, then falling back to sleep only to dream another disturbing dream.

None of his dream specialists are able to interpret his dreams (or perhaps it feels too risky to give Pharaoh bad news without also proposing a solution, as Leon Kass suggests in The Beginning of Wisdom).

The butler then conveniently remembers “the Hebrew” who had successfully interpreted his dream in the dungeon.

In preparation for being presented to Pharaoh, Joseph gets a change of clothes—for at least the third time: first he is given the ornamented, multicolored tunic which his brothers strip him of when they throw him into the pit; we can assume he gets a new set of clothes when he enters Pharaoh’s house as his slave; he leaves his clothes behind as he runs from the sexual advances of his chief steward’s wife and possibly gets some dungeon clothes.

Now he must be cleaned up to come before the king.

Not only is he outfitted with new clothes, he is also fully shaven, as per Egyptian custom.

Soon he will be outfitted as Egyptian royalty, raised to the highest position in Pharaoh’s court, just one step below the throne.

Joseph will be Pharaoh’s most trusted servant, in charge of all Egypt and its surrounding lands, for he has not only predicted a terrible famine based on Pharaoh’s dreams, but also has a practical solution to it, one that stands to increase Pharaoh’s wealth severalfold.

As a sign of his high status, Joseph acquires robes of fine linen, a gold chain around his neck, but most importantly, Pharaoh’s signet ring.

Symbolically, Joseph repeatedly takes on new identities, while also being stripped of them.

His change in attire and identity hints at transformation, reminding us perhaps of his father Jacob who gets a name change.

But this is a different kind of transformation.

Jacob’s change in name signifies an awakening; when Jacob is Israel, he is more in touch with his higher self, the part of him that is more connected to the Divine, possibly also meaning more authentically himself.

But for Joseph, though on the surface he seems a different person—is he really?

Not only is Joseph burying his Hebrew identity beneath Egyptian regalia, I wonder about the person he is and has always been under the surface.

As opposed to transforming him, does his new identity finally give Joseph the opportunity to become his full, authentic self?

Because what are Joseph’s true interests?

And what are his true colors beneath it all?

Many rabbis like to talk about Joseph’s important role as savior of the Jewish people from famine, thus allowing for a future.

Or to point to the realization of dreams coming in their own time, when God decides, after great hardship and suffering.

Others like to point to Joseph’s modesty around his dream interpretations. On several occasions, including when he interprets Pharaoh’s dreams, Joseph takes no credit for his special ability; it is God godself, Elohim, who gives over this information.

Joseph claims only to be a channel.

Has he matured and reflected on the error of his ways of having lorded his dreams over his brothers?

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, in his Kedushat Levi, touts Joseph as one of great righteousness, wisdom and connection to the Divine: a tzaddik.

He attributes the title of tzaddik to a desire on Joseph’s part not to embarrass his brothers when they come to procure grain in the midst of the famine.

Just as his 17-year-old dreams predicted, his brothers bow low to him, believing him to be king, one who would naturally speak harshly to them.

Out of concern for their feelings, to prevent their shame and suffering, he makes himself “like a stranger” to them.

This, says the Kefushat Levi, is the inner awareness of the righteous person, concerned with the well-being of the other—something we should all aspire to.

Not only that, Joseph is the “vizier of the land,” the broker who oversees the grain;

וְיוֹסֵ֗ף ה֚וּא הַשַּׁלִּ֣יט עַל־הָאָ֔רֶץ ה֥וּא הַמַּשְׁבִּ֖יר לְכׇל־עַ֣ם הָאָ֑רֶץ וַיָּבֹ֙אוּ֙ אֲחֵ֣י יוֹסֵ֔ף וַיִּשְׁתַּֽחֲווּ־ל֥וֹ אַפַּ֖יִם אָֽרְצָה׃

V’Yosef hu hashalit al ha’aretz, hu hamashbir l’khol-am ha’aretz, vayavo akhi Yosef vayishtakhavu lo apayim artzah:

“Now Joseph was the master of the land; it was he who dispensed rations/was the broker for all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed low to him, with their faces to the ground.” (Gen. 42:6)

The root verb used repeatedly in these verses, שָׁבַר, whose infinitive form is לִשְׁבׇּר, meaning to procure or buy, also carries the more commonly known meaning, “to break.”

The Kedushat Levi proposes that Joseph, the broker (הַמַּשְׁבִּ֖יר), is the one who “breaks” the Israelites of their bad habit of over-attachement to material wealth; thus, they will be a more spiritually developed people deserving of the epithet, “treasured people.”

This seems harsh to Rabbi Jonathan Slater, who comments on this in his book on the Kedushat Levi, A Partner in Loneliness. Slater points to another definition for שָׁבַר. “Shever,” as a noun, means “grain.”

Slater asks, “Could it be that Levi Yitzhak is suggesting that the work of the leader, the tzaddik, is to nurture and raise up the seeds of holiness in the ‘people of the land’? Or, is the role of the tzaddik to provide the people with the food that they need to grow out of their rootedness in their earthly concern?”

It is true that, on the surface, Joseph saves his own people, and the Egyptians, from a terrible famine.

This can easily be viewed as noble.

We also see Joseph run from the room to hide his tears at hearing his brothers (privately, not knowing Joseph can understand them) profess their guilt for his supposed death; their unrecognizable brother, representing the crown and challenging them in ways that make them fear for their lives in the face of such power, now fear punishment by God for their crime.

We, too, may be overcome by emotion when we read of Joseph’s tears; poor Joseph, a victim of favoritism himself, maligned by his brothers, caught between his loyalty to Pharaoh (which translates to his very life) and his family of origin.

How difficult this must be. Who can blame him? He’s doing his best.

On some level not so deep, we can relate.

And his role in saving the Jewish people has been ordained by God!

But Leon Kass wonders if Joseph, in his masterminded “solution” to the impending doom of famine in the land, actually exacerbates the famine—or even caused it because of his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams?

Not only does Joseph make the country folk, the farmers themselves, dependent on the city, where all the grain was stored.

In so doing, Joseph additionally makes Pharaoh an even wealthier man than before now that everyone must go to the palace to buy grain—and he himself finally gets to be lord.

Kass wonders about Joseph’s motives in the same way as everyone else does, but is not so generous with his analysis.

Kass says of Joseph’s tears, which are shed on several occasions during this time, that “we must guard against sentimentality and our tendency to sympathize with tears and to grant automatically the moral high ground to those who shed them. Often a man weeps most when he is feeling sorry for himself.” (p. 580)

Kass states that understanding Joseph’s tears is “no doubt important in gauging his character and state of his soul,” and concludes that “Joseph’s impulse to tears makes clear…that his feelings…and his lack of self-command are incompatible with his lofty position as Egyptian viceroy and consummate manager of the present drama. Fittingly, Joseph must weep in private, shedding tears also for himself and the divisions within his soul.” (p. 589)

Whether it’s blasphemous or not to challenge Joseph’s position as a tzaddik, a righteous, wise and caring one, I don’t see how a person with a divided soul can be considered as such.

Whether it’s true or not that Joseph has a direct connection to God through his talent for dream interpretation, Joseph is one who struggles with his identity.

After crowning him viceroy, Pharaoh gives him an Egyptian name, an Egyptian wife and he has two sons.

Joseph gives both his sons Hebrew names.

One son he names Menasheh, meaning “God has made me forget all my hardship and my parental home.” The second he names Ephraim, or “God has made me fertile in the land of my affliction.”

Joseph has clearly not forgotten anything, hard as he’s tried, and he considers Egypt to be a land of suffering—all things that emerge through his tears.

And Joseph goes on to test his brothers, to emotionally torture them repeatedly, when finally faced with them again more than twenty years after being sold into slavery.

Unlike Esau, he has not overcome the pain inflicted upon him. (If I had to choose, I would actually have to say that Esau is kind of the tzaddik.)

We’re all flawed.

We are all divided.

The word “healing” comes from an old English word meaning “wholeness,” as in the achievement of cohesion.

None of us can achieve healing—in body, mind, spirit, soul—without the cohesion of our divided soul.

Therefore, I think it’s important to ask ourselves in what ways are we each divided?

And how can we trust our connection to the Divine and our interpretations of dreams or situations when we ourselves are divided and not at peace?

How do we reach our authentic selves?

How much do we allow ourselves, in big ways or small ways, to be dazzled by material wealth or status?

How much of our apparent generosity is grandiosity?

My blessing for this week:

May we achieve a level of being only one step below the throne—but may it be the throne of God where we find our highest selves.

And may we plant seeds of righteousness and aspire to be tzaddikim.

And say Amen.

Dreams, the Land of Fear, & Va-yeishev

This week is all about dreams.

I’m fulfilling my dream of becoming a rabbi in just three weeks! At age 60!

But before we get to that, we begin with this:

וַיֵּ֣שֶׁב יַעֲקֹ֔ב בְּאֶ֖רֶץ מְגוּרֵ֣י אָבִ֑יו בְּאֶ֖רֶץ כְּנָֽעַן׃

Vayeishev Yaakov b’eretz m’gurey aviv b’eretz c’na’an.

There are at least two ways to interpret this very first verse of the Parsha.

The most common translations are, “And Jacob settled/dwelled in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan,” or “in the land of his father’s sojourn.”

Kind of boring.

We could also say, “And Jacob settled in the land of his father’s fear.”

Much more interesting.

Because מְגוּרֵ֣י/m’gurey, or מְגוּרֵ֣/m’gur, is another word for fear or terror—it’s “the fear of” his father.

R. Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev commented that this meant that Jacob embraced his father’s fear, as in “The fear of Isaac” (Gen. 31:42).

Jacob wasn’t finally settling down in his old age, at peace and able to relax with all the wealth he had accumulated, free of challenges (A Partner in Holiness, Enriching our Lives through the Wisdom of R. Levi Yitshak of Berdichev’s Kedushat Levi, by Rabbi Jonathan Slater).

No.

Jacob had absorbed his father’s fear, and had not managed to grow beyond it.

Thus, “settling” in peace did not apply to him.

Perhaps this is why he is referred to here by his ego-centered, short-sighted identity of "Heal-Clinger Jacob.”

His new name, Israel, given to him last week after wrestling with the Divine, is not used here.

Israel implies transformation to the one who understands Unification with Oneness beyond the egoic self.

But Jacob is still limping from his wounds.

His dream of settling down in peace can not be fulfilled.

Not only does he continue his father’s legacy of dwelling in a place of fear; we go on to learn that he is also dwelling in his father’s favoritism, which caused so much damage to his relationship with his twin Esau.

Yes, Jacob, too, has chosen favorites: Joseph, his favored wife Rachel’s youngest son.

This causes rivalry among the many brothers, especially because Joseph has internalized his specialness.

His father even gives him an ornamented tunic that shows off his status.

And being the spoiled child that he is, Joseph does not learn to be sensitive to others.

At 17, he is haughty, bringing “bad reports” back from the fields where they pastor, and sharing dreams that show his superiority.

He has a special gift as a dreamer, interpreting his own and those of others’.

He tells his brothers and his father of dreams that illustrate that they will one day bow down to him.

It struck me that the root word מָגַר/magar, from our first sentence above (the noun meaning sojourn or fear), means something totally different as a verb: to be hurled, tossed, or thrown.

In their vengeful jealousy, Joseph’s brothers throw him into a pit, conspiring to kill him, hoping to erase his dreams:

“Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; and we can say, ‘A savage beast devoured him.’ We shall see what comes of his dreams!”

וְעַתָּ֣ה ׀ לְכ֣וּ וְנַֽהַרְגֵ֗הוּ וְנַשְׁלִכֵ֙הוּ֙ בְּאַחַ֣ד הַבֹּר֔וֹת וְאָמַ֕רְנוּ חַיָּ֥ה רָעָ֖ה אֲכָלָ֑תְהוּ וְנִרְאֶ֕ה מַה־יִּהְי֖וּ חֲלֹמֹתָֽיו׃

V’atah l’chu v’naharogeyhu v’nashlicheyhu b’achad hab’orot v’amarnu chaya ra’ah achalat’hu v’nir’eh ma yihyu chalomotanav (Gen. 37:20).

But—

Reuben says, “Shed no blood! Cast him into that pit out in the wilderness, but do not touch him yourselves”—intending to save him from them and restore him to his father.”

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֣ם ׀ רְאוּבֵן֮ אַל־תִּשְׁפְּכוּ־דָם֒ הַשְׁלִ֣יכוּ אֹת֗וֹ אֶל־הַבּ֤וֹר הַזֶּה֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בַּמִּדְבָּ֔ר וְיָ֖ד אַל־תִּשְׁלְחוּ־ב֑וֹ לְמַ֗עַן הַצִּ֤יל אֹתוֹ֙ מִיָּדָ֔ם לַהֲשִׁיב֖וֹ אֶל־אָבִֽיו׃

Va’yomer aleyhem, “Al tishp’chu dam! Hashlichu oto al ha’bor hazey asher bamidbar, v’yad al tishlachu-vo.” L’maan hatzil oto miyadam lahashivo el aviv. (Gen. 37:22)

Thus, they strip Joseph of his special tunic, symbolically stripping him of his superior status, and throw him into the pit.

Judah then suggests selling him to some passing Midianites.

They then take his tunic, streak it with animal blood, and present it to their father, Jacob:

“And he recognized it, and said, ‘My son’s tunic! A savage beast devoured him! Joseph was torn by a beast!’”

וַיַּכִּירָ֤ה וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ כְּתֹ֣נֶת בְּנִ֔י חַיָּ֥ה רָעָ֖ה אֲכָלָ֑תְהוּ טָרֹ֥ף טֹרַ֖ף יוֹסֵֽף׃

“Vaykira, va’yomer, “K’tonet b’ni! Khaya ra’a akhalat’hu tarof toref Yosef!”

As the eldest, Reuben has the responsibility to keep his youngest brother safe, and will most likely take the greatest blame if anything happens to him.

But speaking of dreams, Reuben also has the dream of being the inheritor of his father’s wealth, which is threatened by his father’s favoritism towards Joseph. He feels a responsibility as the eldest, is afraid of what will happen if harm comes to Joseph, but also wants Joseph gone.

Judah, who suggested selling Joseph into slavery rather than killing him, has his own dreams. He moves on, settles elsewhere, marries, and has children.

His dreams are dashed as tragedy comes upon his family.

First one son marries, then dies.

As required by law, he gives his second son to the same daughter-in-law, Tamar.

He dies too.

Now Judah is afraid to give his third son to her lest he die also.

He promises that when the youngest is old enough, she will marry him. In the meantime, he sends Tamar back to her father’s house, never intending to follow through.

But Tamar has her dreams as well.

And she is our heroine, while living in a time and place that has little regard for her needs or prospects.

She takes her dream and intends to fulfill it:

“So she took off her widow’s garb, covered her face with a veil, and, wrapping herself up, sat down at the entrance to Enaim,…for she saw that Shelah was grown up, yet she had not been given to him as wife.

וַתָּ֩סַר֩ בִּגְדֵ֨י אַלְמְנוּתָ֜הּ מֵֽעָלֶ֗יהָ וַתְּכַ֤ס בַּצָּעִיף֙ וַתִּתְעַלָּ֔ף וַתֵּ֙שֶׁב֙ בְּפֶ֣תַח עֵינַ֔יִם… כִּ֤י רָאֲתָה֙ כִּֽי־גָדַ֣ל שֵׁלָ֔ה וְהִ֕וא לֹֽא־נִתְּנָ֥ה ל֖וֹ לְאִשָּֽׁה׃

Va’tasar bigdey alm’nutah ma’aleha, vat’chas batza’if va'tit’alaf vateshev b’petach eynayim…ki ra'ata ki gadal shela vhi lo nitnah lo l’ishah.

Posing as a prostitute, Judah sleeps with her, and she wins. The details are not important here.

Now we go back to Joseph’s story, where he ends up in servitude to the Pharaoh in Egypt.

First he is raised up as the most trusted of servants, very comfortable, then gets thrown into a second pit—this time, a dungeon in Pharaoh’s palace, for supposedly trying to seduce Pharaoh’s wife.

Thrown into a pit twice, he is at his lowest point, having been raised up, and thrown down again.

Indeed, what will be of his dreams now?

While in prison, he predicts the dreams of two other prisoners; one he tells will be saved, the other empaled.

He begs the one to remember him to Pharaoh once out and safe, but that doesn’t happen.

The other is impaled as predicted.

What has Joseph gained, and what was his purpose in sharing the interpretation of these dreams?

Who is helped?

Yet we will see in the coming weeks that it is he who saves the Israelites and his family from famine. This is a future he can not even imagine during his lowest moments.

Thus, this parsha is about dreams, and also about how fear causes us to act, and how this can affect our dreams.

Tamar is an excellent example of not allowing fear to get in the way. One can imagine she would be terrified at being found out. In fact, Judah threatens to have her burned alive until he is forced to recognize her identity and his promise to her.

Taking us back to the beginning of the parsha, Joseph is sent to find his brothers in the pasture.

Out in a field, “a man came upon him” as he was wandering (37:14).

We never hear from this man again, which is suspicious.

Is this another case of an angel posing as a man, as we did with Abraham and the messengers that came to announce Isaac’s birth, or the Divine being Jacob wrestled with?

Medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides suggests just that; that an angel was sent to make sure Joseph doesn’t give up on his mission of finding his brothers.

Because if Joseph hadn’t met this angel, he wouldn’t have been sold into slavery, his family wouldn’t have followed him to Egypt, and he wouldn’t have been there to save them and his people from starvation later on.

Sometimes our lowest times can enrich our lives in ways we can never imagine.

Perhaps our dreams change as a result. Perhaps we realize that the older dreams were not good ones after all.

And what if we weren’t so quick to want to know the future?

Does it change things?

Maybe.

Predictions are powerful, and can make us give up on dreams.

But our dreams themselves are powerful.

Dreams keep us going just as making plans does. I read once that studies on centenarians say what they have in common is that they are always planning for the future; they always have a dream.

One example I remember was of a woman over a hundred planning her crops for her garden for next year.

She didn’t let anyone tell her that her dream was absurd.

What if we could plant seeds for our dreams?

And (maybe) believe that there’s an angel leading our way?

10th Century Torah commentator Rashi interpreted, “‘And he settled in the land of his father’s sogourn,’ as ‘He desired to live in tranquility.’ Even when fear and terror came upon him, he accepted it all with peace and tranquility” due to his great trust (R. Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev).

We shouldn’t cast aside our dreams, whether large or small; whether we have lots of time, or our days are numbered.

The truth is, all our days are numbered, even when we think we have all the time in the world.

We can adjust our dreams as we go.

And we shouldn’t allow the future to be predicted by other people.

Or for our fear to get in the way.

May we plant the seeds for our dreams, watch them grow, and sow them.

And say Amen.

And He Sent; Vayishlakh

Again this week, angels abound in our story.

In the parsha, Jacob is on his way home.

Finally, after decades of living as a kind of fugitive.

He fled from home to escape the wrath of his twin, Esau.

He’s done terrible things; not only did he take his brother’s birthright, he also stole the blessing meant for Esau.

Despite these things, God has been with him, protected him, and he’s become a very wealthy man with two wives and many children.

While Jacob is manipulated by his uncle Laban, he also has lived his life by guile, to the very end of his time in his uncle’s house.

There’s a description of a complicated sort of sorcery that Jacob performs in order to breed and gain the better livestock from his uncle, so that ultimately he leaves an even wealthier man at the very end.

Despite being such a big shot, he’s afraid; he will be seeing his brother again, and knows not what to expect.

Is Esau still angry? Will he be violent?

The way Torah describes things, we can imagine Jacob shaking in his pants. He sends gifts ahead to appease Esau:

And he sent messengers/malakhim (the same word for angels) to Esav.

וַיִּשְׁלַ֨ח יַעֲקֹ֤ב מַלְאָכִים֙ לְפָנָ֔יו אֶל־עֵשָׂ֖ו

Va’yishlakh Yaakov malakhim l’fanav el Esav

In addition, as a precaution he divides his possessions, a very large caravan, into two camps; if Esau attacks, he won’t lose all.

In the night, left alone after making several trips to see his wives and children cross the river safely, Torah tells us that he wrestled with a man all night until the dawn:

וַיִּוָּתֵ֥ר יַעֲקֹ֖ב לְבַדּ֑וֹ וַיֵּאָבֵ֥ק אִישׁ֙ עִמּ֔וֹ עַ֖ד עֲל֥וֹת הַשָּֽׁחַר׃

Va’yivater Yaakov l’vado, va’ye’avek ish imo ad alot hashachar.

We don’t know if this “ish,” meaning man, often interchangeable with “angel” in our scripture, is man, angel—or demon.

Because interestingly, the word meaning “wrestle” also means “demon.”

And he (the man/demon) saw that he couldn’t prevail, so he struck Jacob in the hollow part of his thigh and dislocated/alienated Jacob’s thigh in his wrestling with him.

וַיַּ֗רְא כִּ֣י לֹ֤א יָכֹל֙ ל֔וֹ וַיִּגַּ֖ע בְּכַף־יְרֵכ֑וֹ וַתֵּ֙קַע֙ כַּף־יֶ֣רֶךְ יַעֲקֹ֔ב בְּהֵאָֽבְק֖וֹ עִמּֽוֹ׃

Va’yar ki lo yakhol lo, v'yiga b’khaf-y’reikho, va’teka kaf yerekh Yaakov b’heyavko imo.

Finally, as dawn is breaking, the angel/demon cries out to him, “Let me go! The dawn is breaking!”

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר שַׁלְּחֵ֔נִי כִּ֥י עָלָ֖ה הַשָּׁ֑חַר

Va’yomer, “shalikheini, ki ala hashakhar.”

To which Jacob answers, “I’ll only let you go if you bless me!”

וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ לֹ֣א אֲשַֽׁלֵּחֲךָ֔ כִּ֖י אִם־בֵּרַכְתָּֽנִי׃

Va’yomer, “Lo ashaleykhakha, ki im beyrakhtani.”

The angel/demon asks Jacob’s name, and in reply, he changes it:

He said, “your name shall no longer be Jacob/Heal-Clinger, because you have wrestled with Israel and divine beings (elohim) and men/angels, and you endured/were able.

וַיֹּ֗אמֶר לֹ֤א יַעֲקֹב֙ יֵאָמֵ֥ר עוֹד֙ שִׁמְךָ֔ כִּ֖י אִם־יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־שָׂרִ֧יתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִ֛ים וְעִם־אֲנָשִׁ֖ים וַתּוּכָֽל׃

Va’yomer, “Lo Yaakov ye’amer od shimkha, ki im yisrael, ki sarita im elohim v’im anashim, v’tukhal.”

What does this mean, that Jacob has wrestled with Israel?

Jacob’s new name, Israel translates as “God Prevails” or, more commonly, “God Wrestler.”

And Jacob called the place Piniel/Facing God, “because I have seen divine beings face to face, and my soul/my life was saved.

וַיִּקְרָ֧א יַעֲקֹ֛ב שֵׁ֥ם הַמָּק֖וֹם פְּנִיאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־רָאִ֤יתִי אֱלֹהִים֙ פָּנִ֣ים אֶל־פָּנִ֔ים וַתִּנָּצֵ֖ל נַפְשִֽׁי׃

Va’yikra Yaakov shem hamakom P’niel ki ra’iti elohim panim el-panim, vatinatzel nafshi.

And the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip.

וַיִּֽזְרַֽח־ל֣וֹ הַשֶּׁ֔מֶשׁ כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר עָבַ֖ר אֶת־פְּנוּאֵ֑ל וְה֥וּא צֹלֵ֖עַ עַל־יְרֵכֽוֹ׃

Va’yizrakh lo ha’shemesh ka’asher avar et P’nuel v’hu tzole’a al y’reykho.

Then Jacob looks up and sees Esau coming.

What is the meaning of all this wrestling and blessing and wounding, all with the same angel or demon?

And why does the angel give Jacob a new name as a blessing, only to have God tell him the same thing just a few verses later?

There’s a beautiful midrash, a story told by “the rabbis” (of old), as retold by Rami Shapiro in his book, The Angelic Way.

In this midrash, the angel with whom Jacob wrestles is none other than the Archangel Michael.

God comes to stop him and says, “Why are you trying to kill Jacob?”

To this, Michael answers, “because one with a blemish can not serve you as a priest. Only I can serve you!” (Michael is reiterating a law stated in the Torah repeatedly about the requirement that priests and the animals they sacrifice be unblemished.)

To which God answers, “Michael, you are my priest in Heaven, and Jacob is my priest on Earth. Heal him now!”

And so, Michael calls his minyans, and especially Raphael, the Archangel of Healing.

But Raphael can only keep Jacob alive; he can not remove his wound.

Shapiro explains that the true concern for Michael was that Jacob was trying to usurp the angelic role.

Instead of blessing Jacob as requested, Michael tells Jacob a little secret: that soon he will be getting a new name. This explains the conundrum in the Torah of why God would come soon after to tell Jacob about his name change.

What’s the concern about a human usurping the angelic role?

The answer lies in the fact that “the ego-centered mind cannot do without the angelic capacity, nor can the angelic do without the human.” (p.68)

Angels are God’s messengers, helpers, and healers for humans.

Through this story, Shapiro says, “The rabbis are reflecting the same insight revealed in the Bible…the point is…to look through the angelic and divine lenses of knowing back to the human so as to reveal humankind for what it is—a microcosm of the divine, the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26).”

Until now, Jacob has been living his whole life as a “Heal Clinger,” first for the birthright, then for his father’s blessing, then for Laban’s daughters and finally his most valuable sheep.

Now, as Israel, he is ready for transformation, to become a care-taker of the people that is named after him (p.69);

…To be Israel “means one is a wounded warrior, one who, the Bible tells us, walks not at the pace of the warrior but at the pace of the nurturer, ‘a slow pace’—matching those of the cattle and the children (Gen. 33:13-14).”

Shapiro goes on to explain that, as humans, we are not made to be more, but less, “not to ‘play god’ and lord it over others, but to be God, one of compassion in the immediacy of our humanity. This is why Michael must serve Israel, the awakened human soul, and not Jacob, the unseeing ego-centered mind.”

Such a transformation “can only happen when we, like Jacob, overcome our aloneness, our alienation.”

It is our narrow-mindedness as humans that keeps us believing that we are separate from God and everyone and everything around us. (p.70)

Those who have lived their lives with guile are afraid to face themselves. The truth may be too difficult.

Even when we think we have lived an honest life, there are times we lie to ourselves.

When we don’t want to face the truth, when we feel alienated and separate, we grasp for things that we think give our life meaning, like the wealth we may accumulate, great or small, when in fact, all that matters is being connected to others.

Whether we are running from or wrestling with demons or not, transformation can only happen when we face them.

When Jacob finally sees his brother, despite his fear and woundedness, the moment is full of relief, for Esau couldn’t be happier to see his brother.

We are told that Esau runs to Jacob and falls on his neck, kissing him, and together they weep.

Fear vanishes, just as the illusion that he and his brother are separate also vanishes.

It is only now that Jacob can stop grasping and clinging to things that have no importance in the Truth of Life.

To be human is to be wounded. It is our woundedness that leads to wisdom and enlightenment.

Instead of running from, or resenting our wounds, we can use them for their potential to help us to transform.

My blessing for this week is almost the same as last; may we stop running, face our demons, wrestle with them, and continue our deep work of letting go of the egoic self that gives us the illusion of separateness.

With this, may we find healing.

And say Amen.

Rock Bottom & Va’yeitzei

God was in this place and I did not know it.

When we encounter Jacob in this week’s parsha, he is on the run.

His mother, Rebecca, has told him to flee Esau’s wrath for having stolen his blessing and his birthright.

Jacob has an actual destination (his uncle Laban’s house).

But he is without direction.

In the wilderness, he lies down to sleep for the night, placing a stone under his head as a pillow, and dreams.

In his dream, there is a ladder standing on the ground with angels ascending and descending, the top reaching all the way to the heavens:

וַֽיַּחֲלֹ֗ם וְהִנֵּ֤ה סֻלָּם֙ מֻצָּ֣ב אַ֔רְצָה וְרֹאשׁ֖וֹ מַגִּ֣יעַ הַשָּׁמָ֑יְמָה וְהִנֵּה֙ מַלְאֲכֵ֣י אֱלֹהִ֔ים עֹלִ֥ים וְיֹרְדִ֖ים בּֽוֹ׃

Va’yakhalom v’hiney sulam mutzav artzah v’rosho magi’ah hashamay’ma v’hiney malakhey elohim olim v’yordim bo.

God stands beside him (וְהִנֵּ֨ה יְהֹוָ֜ה נִצָּ֣ב עָלָיו֮/v’hiney YHVH nitzav alav) and speaks to him in the dream saying, the land you are lying on shall be for you and your ancestors, who will be numerous as the dust of the earth.

And I will protect you and bring you back here.

Jacob awakens and says, Surely God is present in this place and I did not know it.

אָכֵן֙ יֵ֣שׁ יְהֹוָ֔ה בַּמָּק֖וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וְאָנֹכִ֖י לֹ֥א יָדָֽעְתִּי׃/akheyn yesh YHVH ba’makom hazeh v’anokhi lo yadati

Then, “Shaken, he said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven.’” וַיִּירָא֙ וַיֹּאמַ֔ר מַה־נּוֹרָ֖א הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה אֵ֣ין זֶ֗ה כִּ֚י אִם־בֵּ֣ית אֱלֹהִ֔ים וְזֶ֖ה שַׁ֥עַר הַשָּׁמָֽיִם׃ (Gen.28:17)

But before Jacob can return to the land promised by God, he goes on a very long journey.

During this time, he is tricked into marriage and a servitude that lasts decades; instead of marrying the one he loves, Rachel, Laban gives him Leah.

Though Torah doesn’t say so, we can imagine that he suffers greatly as he waits to marry Rachel.

Yet Jacob’s love for Rachel gives him the patience to make it through—first seven years, then another seven years (and then another seven after that).

It seems cruel. No one should have to suffer in this way.

In the end, though, in exchange for his hard work shepherding, he is rewarded with great wealth.

The parsha ends with Jacob fleeing again—this time with his wives and children—away from his uncle’s house.

Isn’t it interesting that the parsha begins and ends with Jacob fleeing—and always surrounded by angels?

After finally making peace with Laban on the road, Jacob “went on his way, and angels of God encountered him. When he saw them, Jacob said, ‘this is God’s camp, so he named that place Mahanaim (two camps).’”

וְיַעֲקֹ֖ב הָלַ֣ךְ לְדַרְכּ֑וֹ וַיִּפְגְּעוּ־ב֖וֹ מַלְאֲכֵ֥י אֱלֹהִֽים׃/v’yaakov halakh l’darko, va’yifg’u vo malackei elohim

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יַעֲקֹב֙ כַּאֲשֶׁ֣ר רָאָ֔ם/va’yomer yaakov ka’asher ra’am

מַחֲנֵ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים זֶ֑ה/makhaney elohim ze

וַיִּקְרָ֛א שֵֽׁם־הַמָּק֥וֹם הַה֖וּא מַֽחֲנָֽיִם/va’yikra shem ha’makom ha’hu makhana’yim

These words are used in our liturgy as part of our “Traveler’s Prayer.”

The camps of God are a multiplicity of the holy, illustrated through God’s angels.

It’s funny that you can be in a place, and not know that it’s holy.

We forget that holiness is all around us.

Even when we are disconnected from it, holiness is there.

The fact is, every place is holy.

The ladder standing firmly on the ground in Jacob’s dream, with its angels coming down to the ground and ascending to the heavens, represents our connection to holiness when we feel like we’re “all the way down here,” and heaven is “all the way up there.”

Rabbi Shefa Gold, in her book, Torah Journeys, says that the ladder is nothing less than the human body; a channel between the Earth and Heaven.

We ourselves are the gateway to heaven.

We are connected even when we don’t realize it, and we can access that holiness, if only we knew it—if only we are aware of it.

God does not “dwell” in any particular place, a “makom,” as in יֵ֣שׁ יְהֹוָ֔ה בַּמָּק֖וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה/yesh YHVH ba’makom haze/God is in this place (Gen.28:16 again); the implication is that holiness is accessible from wherever we are.

Makom/מָּק֖וֹם is even sometimes used as one of the words for God.

Finally, in fleeing, Jacob is running away, not just from a wrathful brother, but from himself. He is turning away, desperately trying to escape a situation he played a part in creating—but he does not change—not yet, anyway.

It seems that he has his “rock bottom,” as they say, which is when we are so desperate, we finally are willing to accept that we are not in charge of our lives, and that we need help. Thus, Jacob’s opening to the Divine is his first step forward.

What he discovers is that, despite being flawed, despite the horrible things he has done to his brother, and despite his (perhaps) state of terror at the unknown, he is not alone. He hears God’s words of promise and comfort, and feels God’s love for him.

Perhaps it is God’s comforting presence and love that gives Jacob the patience to endure.

How often do we run away from ourselves, only to find that—there we are again: same old person in a different place.

The strength and patience to endure in any difficult situation comes from the love of those around us, which itself is holy.

It can also come from the connection to the holy ground under our feet, the earth itself.

If we can stop, close our eyes like Jacob did, open to the holiness under our feet and above our heads, and allow those around us to support us with their love, we can make it through the journey.

God does not promise the journey will be easy. He just promises to be there with Jacob along the way, and to protect him.

May we stop running, and may we all feel accompanied as we walk through the challenging and holy journey called life.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes—not a fairy tale—& Toldot

I’m in the countdown—6 weeks until ordination.

I’m facing some exciting changes and opportunities.

There is much to do in preparation for my ordination, and also for a new venture I’m on (which I’m not ready to share just yet).

These coming weeks are also a time for me to go inward.

All this is to say, my blog writing is also going through some changes. I need to re-balance my priorities. We shall see what form it all takes. Bear with me as I figure it all out.

Speaking of changes, when we go through big ones (i.e. ordination), we often have a fairy tale version of how things will be once we’re done—that is, for the ones we’re yearning for and have worked hard to achieve.

The parsha begins with Rebecca finally pregnant. She and Isaac have been yearning for a child after 20 years of barrenness.

But this pregnancy and birth—and their life as a family—are no fairy tale to match the love that happened at first sight between Rebecca and Isaac.

Rebecca is in great physical pain; there are two sons crushing each other (וַיִּתְרֹֽצְצ֤וּ/vayitrotz’tzu) in her womb: the famous Esau and Jacob.

Rebecca cries out to God, wondering why she exists if she is to suffer so; אִם־כֵּ֔ן לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה אָנֹ֑כִי/im ken, lama ze anochi?

God informs her that the boys are two warring nations, and one will dominate the other.

They even leave the womb fighting; Esau emerges with Jacob grasping his heal.

The rest of the story is full of decisions that are clouded by similar kinds of desperation, lack of trust—in one’s body, for instance—but also in a wider, longer perspective on life.

To further complicate matters, there is the common wish to lay blame on others for things going awry, as opposed to taking responsibility for one’s own actions.

Esau is famished after coming in from the hunt, and Jacob uses this to manipulate him into selling his birthright.

Esau’s anger at his brother grows as he blames Jacob for having given up his birthright—but was his life actually ever in danger?

Then Isaac, now old with poor eyesight, sends his favorite, Esau, to go hunt and cook for him. This is in preparation for bestowing Isaac’s innermost blessing upon him before he dies.

Rebecca overhears.

Wanting her favorite, Jacob, to receive the blessing, she devises a quick plan while Esau is out hunting.

Jacob approaches Isaac in disguise, and manages to fool him.

Isaac, though he does not recognize Esau’s voice, allows himself to be fooled; he gives his innermost blessing to Jacob instead.

Esau’s heart is broken.

And Isaac pretends to be helpless; he has given away his blessing already, and nothing can be done to undo it.

Esau’s anger flares and he swears he will kill Jacob as soon as the mourning period for their father is over.

Rebecca, to save both her sons, sends Jacob away. The brothers do not see each other for decades after that.

Hearts are broken all around.

How many of us have been in such a situation—where our suffering feels so great that we wonder at the wisdom of going on living, like Rebecca?

How many have made decisions out of desperation, or a wish to control a situation, thinking our way is the right way, the best way?

How many have given over our responsibility, and blamed others for our situation?

Did we think it would be easy just because we were in love when we started out?

The actions of all these characters show a lack of trust and faith on so many levels—for Rebecca and Esau in their bodies, and later, for wanting to control the outcome, but simultaneously a lack of willingness to take responsibility—and to see!

The lessons from this parsha are great. Life is never a fairy tale, though we may wish or imagine it could be.

But we can make it better.

We must be willing to seek clarity, see things as they are, take responsibility for our actions—and let go of control—at least a little: to trust, at least a bit.

May it be so.

And say Amen.

Old Man Rabbi & Chayei Sarah

You know that you’ve made it on Social Media when people start insulting you.

Recently, I started making YouTube videos (@Juliet the Rabbi is my channel).

As a backdrop for the videos, I sit in front of a large painting on the wall of my office. I guess you could say it’s a family heirloom.

The painting is called, “The Rabbi.” The artist is Ben Zion, a famous Jewish painter. It depicts an old man with a long white beard. He’s sitting barefoot on the floor with a tallit, a prayer shawl, draped over his head and shoulders as he gazes down at a Torah scroll he’s holding in his gigantic, male hands.

I used to see him hanging in my aunt and uncle’s house growing up. As the child of Communists, I had absolutely no context for this old man, so I had no idea what it was about.

Last week, my viewership for my Spanish YouTube videos exploded, and I started getting subscribers. I even got some beautiful comments.

But one comment was typical of the license people take on Social Media to express any insulting, stupid thought that comes into their minds.

It said, “The painting behind you is really ugly and you should sell it at its liquidation price”—with a thumbs up emoji.

I just had to laugh, it was so ridiculous.

I was telling some friends, a group of women I got together to form a group of Jewish clergy comprised solely of women. This was a final “capstone” project for my rabbinic studies.

The idea came as a counterpoint to the overwhelming representation of male clergy in the world.

I had personally experienced this dominance, and the competition among women that results from it, especially in the tiny Jewish world.

My group is an effort to support and empower each other as women clergy while offering something unique.

Yesterday during our weekly meeting, I told the group about what had happened with the YouTube comment.

One of the women said strongly, “You’re going to have to change your backdrop, Juliet. That painting doesn’t represent who you are as a rabbi. It’s a leftover image from the past that we’re trying to change.”

Others agreed. I listened, my heart sinking.

“Or maybe you should put a band across it,” someone else said, “like you’re banning this antiquated image.” (I’m paraphrasing.)

I was disturbed, partly because I’m attached to the painting.

But the more I thought about it overnight, the more I realized it felt like “Cancel Culture.”

The truth is, by sitting in front of Old Man Rabbi, I actually feel like I’m defying the wider culture and Jewish stereotypes.

I also don’t feel the need to erase the past.

The past is a part of my story, like my grandfather lovingly laughing at my desire to wear a yarmulke as a girl child, something beyond his imagination.

Though my grandfather wasn’t a rabbi, there’s a sense that he’s watching over me, marveling at the fact that I am carrying out his cherished desire for me to love Judaism by becoming a rabbi myself.

I bet he’s laughing at the irony of it now.

But I’m sure he’s also marveling at the fact that, as a woman, I have that choice.

Every year when I read the parsha, Chayei Sarah, The Life of Sarah, I marvel at the character of Rebecca.

I wonder how she had the strength—and the faith—to agree to marry a man she’d never seen, knew nothing about, in a far off place, and to leave by the very next morning, without even flinching.

Though she had little choice in her life’s trajectory, she might have protested in some way: begged for more time, pleaded with her brother and mother not to be sent away forever.

She might have cried.

But none of this happens. In fact, it’s her family that begs for a little more time with her.

When she leaves, she simply takes her maid, her personal belongings, and her family’s blessings with her, and goes on her way, perhaps never to see them again.

Perhaps she started with a good solid sense of faith.

Perhaps Abraham’s servant’s faith also feeds hers.

The servant sent by Abraham is on a mission to seek a wife for his son Isaac.

He has strict instructions to find a woman from among his family, not from the local Canaanites.

He must swear to Abraham that he will secure one who will agree to return with him; under no uncertain terms is Isaac to go live in her land.

The servant takes his oath very seriously, and prays to the god of Abraham to help him.

At the same time, he knows that Abraham’s god has sent an angel before him to lead the way and help him—because Abraham has told him so, and he believes it without question.

The servant imagines the kind of girl he is looking for and the conversation that will ensue—one generous and kind, quick to help a thirsty man and his camels after a long trek in the desert.

And when his prayers are fulfilled, he marvels that what he had imagined is exactly what comes true. So excited is he that he refuses to eat until he has told the tale of his mission to his hosts.

This servant has a deep faith.

He knows he is not alone on this journey—that there is a god who cares.

I was listening a few days ago to Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks talking about the importance of faith.

He says that as humans, we are made to have faith, just like we are made for connection to each other; without faith in something greater than ourselves—something that cares about us—there is no hope, and life has no meaning.

Faith, he says, is closely tied to religion, and our modern American society is also founded on religion’s (specifically Judaism’s) moral principles.

Although religion can and has been manipulated, abused and abusive (my words), Sacks says that when we lose a collective sense of faith, and there are no agreed upon moral principles, when everyone is on their own to make and find meaning in life, personal and collective tragedies increase, as in suicide rates (and mass shootings).

—Because meaning is not something we do on our own.

We are like individual letters that have no meaning except if joined together to become words, that likewise come together to form sentences, then paragraphs, in order to make meaning.

We can not make meaning alone.

Thus, society can not live healthily without a shared understanding and purpose. This is called anomie.

In the same way, though many would like us to believe it, science can not stand alone, without religion.

Sacks says that the skepticism that science has promoted, and that has infected our society, is a “very bad mistake.”

Moreover, it has become a widespread idea that religion is a way of explaining things we couldn’t explain before.

But-—"Science can tell us how things work, though not why; technology gives power, but doesn’t tell us how to use that power; democratically elected governments can stop us from harming other people, but they do not/can not tell us how to live; the market gives us choices, but doesn’t tell us what the good choices to make are, and what are bad.”

And—“There are three questions that science can not answer: Who am I? Why am I here? and How then shall I live?”

Sacks continues: “We have affluence and choices our grandparents couldn’t have imagined. Yet, the despair has increased.”

He is amused by those he likes call, “the angry atheists,” who argue that there “probably” is no God, and wrote as much in ads posted all over London buses some time ago.

I ask: what was the probability that Abraham’s servant would find exactly what he was looking for, and that it would happen exactly as he imagined and hoped?

Our tradition teaches, from Psalm 23, "I will not be afraid, for You are with me.”

When Rebecca approaches the place of her future home, she sees Isaac. Without knowing who he is, she falls off her camel—obviously overcome simply by the sight of him.

And Isaac loved her—only the second reference to love in the Bible.

Rebecca didn’t have many choices—they were either marriage or harlotry.

What she did have was faith.

Yet, what was the probability that Rebecca would find love with a man she’d never even seen—or that he was would be handsome to boot?!

Still, the possibility of love gives us hope.

Love and connection bring meaning to life.

We don’t know why. These things belong to the part of life whose explanation defies logic or science.

And they are part of our story.

My inheritance is part of my story—a story I am playing a part in changing.

If I didn’t have faith that I could make a difference in making Judaism less dogmatic, more inclusive and egalitarian, I wouldn’t have bothered investing so much in studying for the past seven years.

In itself, having faith is counter-cultural to the United States.

That faith is rooted in something that I believe cares about me, about us, and, as my tradition teaches through our prayers, I should never be ashamed of that faith, or of Judaism.

Tragedy, a Greek word that has no equivalent in Hebrew, means “bad things happen because of the way the world is; the Universe is blind to our existence, deaf to our prayers, it couldn’t care less whether we exist or not. But Judaism says otherwise”—as Rabbi Sacks says.

As I said last week, all the great leaders of social movements have shared a deep faith.

Atheists who look to them for guidance tend to disregard or forget this fact. Meanwhile, it is this faith that drove them to fight for the possible, not the probable.

I love the following letters and words strung together by Rabbi Sacks:

“Jews have proved in every age that faith is the defeat of probability by the power of possibility…

“Judaism, through its great heroes and heroins, has shown us what we might achieve, and by challenging us to great heights, lifted us to greatness. May we be lifted to greatness, and may [God] bless all that we do.”

I add to this blessing:

May we each continue to strengthen our faith through our ancient stories; may we find strength in our faith, and may we play a part in the counterculture of faith for the good of all humanity.

And say Amen.

My Tummy Hurts & Va-yera

I couldn’t stomach going out into the “gorgeous weather” yet again yesterday.

While it seems so many people are enjoying it, I find it hard not to think of when the next devastating hurricane will hit.

The temperature went to a humid upper 70’s on Sunday for the New York City Marathon—in November!

I stayed inside as a protest—what a lot of difference that made in the world!

Meanwhile, conspiracy theories abound in the political arena. Day after day, what fills the news is how crucial this time of mid-term elections is, and the “threat to our democracy.”

Many boundaries are crossed as “volunteers” would like to “help count votes,” interfering in the election process—some of the same people, I suspect, who would do something like, say, storm the Capitol and cause chaos and destruction.

Our country is one big hot mess.

The world is one big hot mess.

And since the world is One, I am also One Big Hot Mess.

I could go on. Are you sure you want me to? It’s hard to stomach.

But this week’s Torah portion is also hard to stomach, with its own chaos, destruction, and crossing of boundaries.

For instance:

1. A mob of townsmen in Sodom breaking down a door and invading Lot’s house in the effort to rape two male visitors/angels in human form (terrifying and curious);

2. Lot’s offering of his virgin daughters in their stead—to do with whatever they want (outrageous);

3. Lot’s family fleeing from the fire and brimstone that God sets upon Sodom, and his wife turning into a pillar of salt when she looks back (all horrifying);

4. Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and “lying with him” in order to get pregnant and continue the species (gross);

5. Sarah—again—posing as Abraham’s sister with yet another king in another palace (outrageous);

6. Sarah giving birth at ninety (don’t want to imagine that one);

7. God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test (outrageous);

8. Abraham tying his son to an altar and raising a knife to him until God/angels tell him to stop (again…).

All contain boundaries that should never be crossed, and violence and destruction that doesn’t need to happen.

It’s One Big Hot Mess.

What do we do with it all? How to protect our personal boundaries so we can participate in healing the world while also staying active and abreast of what’s happening?

It comforts me to hear life-long meditation teacher, Tara Brach, talk about sleepless nights of panic and anxiety over the mid-term elections and the state of the world.

Over so many decades of teaching spiritual practice, she says that what she’s learned is that the more trust or hope a person has, the more a person gets engaged—and the more change actually happens.

“Wise hope," is what she calls it: to trust in possibility.

Which extends beyond the personal to the entire world.

As she says, the spiritual leaders that have inspired transformational movements, all had a revolutionary vision that included a sense of possibility for our collective potential.

And they all believed in rooting activism in love and compassion.

The more each of us has a vision, she says, the more we energize that unfolding.

In the words of her friend, poet Dana Faulds:

Where there’s love, there’s possibility.

And where there’s possibility, there’s energy.

And where there’s energy, anything at all can happen.

And where anything can happen, surely something good will come of it.

If at any point things seem to be going awry, that’s when I begin again with love.

Tara Brach beseeches us: rekindle Wise Hope. It connects us with all others who have love for life and want to serve life—with all those alive feeling our great concern, wanting to be part of the healing.

This week, I read something beautiful and inspiring in the book, A River Flows From Eden, by Melila Hellner-Eshed, a book about the Zohar, which belongs to the mystical teachings of Judaism.

Hellner-Eshed explains that, according to the Zohar, mystics are those who taste the sweet amid the bitter. The mystic “knows that an envelope of bitterness encases the divine sweetness, yet knows how to reach the sweet, divine essence hidden within the layers of the world’s bitterness (p.83).”

In addition, the mystic is one who turns darkness into light, subdues evil, and transforms evil into good: “There is no light except that which emerges from darkness…and there is no good except that which comes from evil. (Zohar 2:184a, p.82).”

She explains further, “In the Zohar, the light of (the) moments of love is the light of dawn, prior to the world’s inundation with the strong light of the sun.

I will end with a story from a friend of her experience watching the lunar eclipse a couple of nights ago.

It was the middle of the night, she couldn’t sleep, and she saw the full moon shining bright in the sky.

Over the next couple of hours, each time she checked, the moon was slowly entering into darkness, until it was but a sliver.

Finally, all she could see was a murky blackness.

This created terrible anxiety in her. She wanted to see the moon revealed again, but it was setting.

But just as that was happening, the sky was beginning to brighten as the day dawned.

In that moment, what was revealed to her is that the light is always there, even in the murkiest moments.

May we all be like mystics, seeing the light in the darkness, tasting the sweet in the bitter, and transforming evil into good through our love.

Black, Jewish, Religious, Gay & Lech Lecha

Everyone wants to be famous.

Or at least be recognized for their gifts and contributions.

Last week, I threw myself entirely into Instagram. In a really big way.

This is very unlike me.

Until now, I have refused, especially during the pandemic, to be sucked into the vortex of social media.

I have protested when told I needed to get moving on Tik Tok and Instagram to get my name out there.

Not only was I intimidated by it, I also didn’t want to have to play this game everyone is playing! It feels like you’re in this impossible sea, all vying for the big fish.

Not to mention—it’s a lot of work, and for very little return.

But last week, I spent hours studying it, watching intently to understand the types of content people post.

I was appalled at the end of the week when I got my screen-time report from my phone!

Exactly when I wrote, “put away the iphone, close out Instagram, Facebook…” I was doing exactly the opposite—even when I was with family! (Are you laughing now?)

“For what?” I protested to my daughters.

“To get a lot of viewers.”

“But why?”

“To become famous.”

“What for?” I insisted.

Finally, all they could do was laugh at me.

Back in September, I was visiting a friend on the Long Island Sound, enjoying the sand and the sea.

There were mounds of shells washed up on the beach, and I decided to try walking in them.

Yes, it was painful. But a good massage, as they say.

My friend, amazed, said, “let me film this!"

So I did a cute little walk for her through the shells.

Then I posted it on Instagram for the fun of it.

And I’ve gotten over 9,000 views! I was shocked! Here I was, just being my silly self, not trying at all!

Last week in Torah, before Abraham appeared on the scene, the people built a tower reaching all the way to the heavens. They wanted to “make a name” for themselves.

In this week’s Torah portion, God tells Abraham (still going by Abram), to go forth (Lech Lecha), leave his family and the place of his birth—and God will make his name great; and like the stars in the sky—or grains of sand on a beach—Abraham’s offspring will be so numerous, they are beyond counting.

But as soon as God singles Abram out, Abram proceeds to act in a way that no leader should act.

He goes down to Egypt and, for his own personal gain, wrongs his wife Sarai (soon to be Sarah), by asking her to tell a lie for him; she is so pretty, he fears the Egyptians will kill him—and keep her. Thus, she poses as his sister, and ends up in Pharaoh’s palace (for purposes we can easily imagine) for what might be years; it is enough time for Abram to become a very wealthy man.

Abram’s ego, and his disregard for another’s—a woman/his wife’s (!) life, are so great that he only cares for his own welfare (his name!), never thinking of the suffering he is causing—not even, it seems, when God brings a plague upon Pharaoh’s house, and Abram is forced to take Sarai and leave—with all his wealth! (Has he learned anything??)

Later, Sarai, unable to conceive, falls into a competition with her maidservant, Hagar. Hagar becomes pregnant by Abram, and Sarai fears she will lose recognition—her name—as the woman of the house, which leads her to treat Hagar cruelly. 

She understands how society is set up, and she falls into the same game as Abram, but on a woman’s level.

Further on, there is a battle between various kings, and Abram triumphs.

After the battle, they break bread, drink wine, and the king of Sodom offers Abram spoils of war in exchange for “the soul.” תֶּן־לִ֣י הַנֶּ֔פֶשׁ וְהָרְכֻ֖שׁ קַֽח־לָֽךְ׃/ten-li ha’nefesh v’harkhush kakh lakh/Give me the soul and you take the riches (Gen.14:21).

The “soul” often refers to a “person” in Hebrew. While being translated in the plural, as in “Give me the persons,” it actually appears in the singular, as shown above.

Previous commentary on this has suggested that the singular, “nefesh/soul,” implies that Abram would be selling his soul in exchange for wealth.

Abram absolutely refuses, saying, God forbid the king should be known as the one who made Abram rich.

In this instance, as opposed to earlier, Abram makes the right decision.

Later, when Abram is ninety-nine years old, God comes to solidify the covenant with the Israelites. God says to Abram, “walk before me and you will be tamim.” (Gen.17:1) הִתְהַלֵּ֥ךְ לְפָנַ֖י וֶהְיֵ֥ה תָמִֽים/hit’halekh l’fanai ve’h’ye tamim.

The word tamim can be understood as “pure,” or “blameless.”

But it also carries the understanding of “wholeness”—meaning walk before me with all of you—the good and the less desirable parts.

Perhaps Torah’s message is that we are not expected to be perfect, but to walk before God completely and fully as we are: our authentic selves.

Yet, what we mostly see on social media is not this. Each one out there is trying to make their name great, appearing beautiful, young, and purely happy, fulfilled, and confident. I see millions of people, strangers to me, dancing in front of the camera, trying desperately to be noticed in the sea of people.

Their ability to perform makes the rest of us feel like we shouldn’t even try; we could never live up to such a thing.

I don’t think many would deny that they’re selling an image—and sometimes willing to sell their soul in exchange.

I recently came across a guy named Tony Westbrook on Instagram who goes by the name of “Frum Jewish Black Boy.” Being Black and gay as an Orthodox Jew makes him very unusual. One can imagine his struggles walking in the world.

Yet he has made it his mission to put his whole, authentic self out there for everyone to see.

I heard him talking on a podcast about authenticity and how important it is to fight against the desire to hide behind a facade. Interestingly, he became famous on Tik Tok, just wanting to connect with others during the pandemic by lightening up the heaviness. He became famous by being his authentic self—and he wasn’t even trying!

He was just being his authentic self.

In exploring social media as a way to publicize my wares, I’ve had to really ask myself, what is it I actually want from all this? Why do it? How do I remain authentic while also getting my name out there?

How do I bring my whole self along, and not sell my soul while I’m at it?

The answer I've come up with is, I’m doing it because I’m passionate. I’m passionate about Judaism.

I have spent many years now developing myself in the spiritual realm, and it has saved me from despair, and so, I want to bring this to other people.

Also true is that I want to be noticed so I can make a living on this new path.

Remember Zach Bush? I talked him about last week. The “non-empathic presence” doctor who wants to save the world?

Well, he told of this amazing experience of swimming in the sea and being surrounded by a huge school of sardines. The sardines were clearly able to see him and sense his every movement as they moved in perfect harmony.

Suddenly, bubbles appeared, and as they cleared, he could see that some pelicans had plunged into the water for a meal.

Zach’s first reaction was “Oh, no, they’ve come to eat my friends!”

But then he heard and sensed from the fish, “NOOO! Wrong!”

He realized in that moment that the sardines had a knowing that they are an integral part of the cycle of life, and that all together, they make a contribution to life on Earth; they understand that they are part of a much larger cause.

Capitalism has caused us to forget our collective responsibility to each other and our environment. Our society is set up so that we are all scrambling for a living—and a name.

In order to make it, we need to compete and be better, funnier, more known, more beautiful, than the next person.

One of our greatest assets as humans is our individual ability to make unique contributions to society. But we need to remember that we are like the sardines in the sea, here to help our greater society flourish—to contribute to the whole.

We each need to ask ourselves what messages we are sending out into the world with our work. Is it for a cause that is authentically us?

And what is the impact on the whole?

So, when we say, Lekh lekha—go out into the world—let’s make sure we mean: find your own way, but with the greater good in mind.

My blessing for the week is, may we humans be like one big school of sardines, learning from and teaching each other, recognizing each other’s individual gifts, yet moving in synchronicity, making our individual contributions for the sake of the collective and all of Creation.

And say Amen.

Numbness, Knowing, & Noach

I’m always embarrassed to say it, but I’ve basically stopped listening to the news. Maybe I’m trying to numb myself to the pain.

I don’t want to hear daily about all the climate disasters. I don’t want to hear about all the gerrymandering and redistricting to capture votes. I know how messed up our system is.

And I’m tired of feeling hopeless. And of screaming. It just hurts my throat.

I also cringe as I walk past the ever-growing, overwhelming number of people competing for storefront sidewalk space on my street corner, begging for some coins.

I cringe as I walk by, and don’t give them money anymore.

I feel guilty, despite the complex issue of giving money on the street, because I’m supposed to be able to look the suffering square in the face and feel it.

I’m supposed to empathize and offer something. I’m supposed to be Mother Teresa.

It could be argued that developing empathy is the center of all religious and spiritual practice.

“Love your neighbor as yourself,” is a major tenet of Judaism, to be sure—no matter how annoying your neighbor may be.

What a terrible rabbi I will make, I think to myself in those moments.

But the truth is, I do feel the suffering. So very deeply.

Then I hear this doctor guy, Zach Bush, M.D., and he blows my mind.

“One of the worst things is empathy,” he says.

What???

What he wants us to go for is “non-empathic presence.” When someone is sick, suffering, in pain, don’t feel their pain with them. Empathy drains the suffering person’s energy. “I’m a caring person,” is a story we’ve written about who we are as good, empathetic beings. It just makes us feel better about ourselves as humans.

Instead, he says, just be present with them. Don’t try to distract them from their pain, or to numb them with drugs. Skip the empathy. Just connect and communicate with them through touch, which is the best pain reliever ever.

This week in Torah, God destroys all human and animal life on Earth, save the one famous man (and his family) that has shown up in coloring books the world over— along with samples of all the animals on Earth.

God is deeply disappointed by the wayward humans he has created, and chooses one amongst them all: the “only righteous person of his generation,” to start again.

After the flood, when God sees the terrible destruction God has wrought on Earth, God regrets God’s actions. Thus God promises to never destroy the Earth in its entirety again. Now that his anger has passed, he is no longer numb to the pain he has brought.

As Noah’s family begins to reproduce, and new generations appear, the people become very numerous, and they use their unique intelligence and dexterity, along with their communal, tribal bent, to work together to build a tower. This tower reaches all the way to the sky/heavens: the Tower of Babel.

As God is watching this unfold, God fears that these humans have forgotten that there is a much greater, Infinite Intelligence out there, a great mystery we call “God.” God fears that the height of the tower, all the way to the heavens, signals their belief they are just as powerful as Infinite Power.

So God brings them down a notch, confounds their speech so they no longer share a common language. Communication becomes more difficult.

As we ponder the imminent destruction of life on Earth, of the real possibility of the extinction of human and non-human species, this story strikes a little too close to home.

Many of us are way too aware of the havoc our species has wreaked on Earth.

We are frustrated by our inability to communicate with those we disagree with, even when we literally speak the same language and share the same culture. Yet—we must convince all those non-believers in order to save us from doom!

On the one hand, we appreciate our species’ beautiful and unique intelligence that allows us to create and build truly awe-inspiring structures—including this new technology that allows us communication across the globe.

On the other, we are appalled at how selfish and greedy we can be. We want everyone to understand that we must learn to share our resources. And we weep as we see how the technology we’ve built is used to kill and spread hatred.

Imperfect, contradictory beings, full of so much love and hatred. Thus the Mystery made us—a strange mixture.

We might wonder if God was right to be so deeply disappointed in humanity as to destroy everything.

Yet, there was one thing God couldn’t destroy, and God must have known this: though all plant life is underwater for a long time, it revives and returns to health without any help at all!

God somehow knew that the Earth could heal herself.

There’s an amazing piece of science Zach Bush shares. He says that, with only a tiny percentage of farms changing their practices, the Earth can regain her balance.

Just as beautiful and hopeful as this, the same goes for human consciousness; we don’t need to change everyone’s mind, just a tiny number in relation to the entire human population! We humans, like plants, communicate across space without even knowing it!

So if you’re involved in politics, trying desperately to do whatever it is you think will save our country or the world, do it with kindness and love.

And stop screaming. It only hurts your voice.

If you’re on Social Media, be kind, and don’t engage with those who are full of rage.

Just stop.

Stop and be present.

Put down the iphone.

Stop “death-scrolling” on Facebook.

Close out the Instagram—at least while you’re with family or friends.

Or even when you’re by yourself. Be present for and with yourself.

Just be present, and stop trying to avoid the pain you feel.

If you’re in nature, tell the birds and the trees and the plants how you love them. Touch them. Cry with them. Tell them you’re sorry. They have the intelligence to feel you. They are much better at communicating than we are. Watch Fantastic Fungi, if you’re not convinced.

And when you mess up and lose it or yell, don’t beat yourself up. Try to repair it. Do teshuvah. And forgive yourself. Remember we’re all that weird mixture of humanity.

When someone else acts in a way you find difficult, remind yourself that maybe you’ve done that, too. Try to understand where they’re coming from. Be loving. Forgive them.

The Earth is very forgiving.

We can be, too.

And together we can heal the world.

And say Amen.

Babies & B’reishit

This past Sunday, I led a baby naming for a newborn girl.

Such a perfect way to start the new year.

New baby. New Year. (Or the other way around.)

The father had told me he had no idea what a baby naming entailed. 

That’s because we’re making it up as we go, bringing attention to girls as we strive to gain equal recognition for females upon entering the Covenant. (This is not to mention what to do for an intersex child, or how interesting that the rabbis of the Talmud recognized the reality of many genders.)

Adding to the complication of a make-it-up-as-you-go approach, the father is of Jewish Eastern European ancestry while the mother is Chinese Malaysian and Christian.

It’s another one of those situations with an interfaith couple where the Jewishness of the baby might be called into question in the majority of the Jewish world. (Patrilineal descent is not yet widely accepted, you may know.)

People will most certainly (and sadly, in my opinion), ask, “To which tribe does this beautiful new being truly belong?”

The couple seems to live a secular life for the most part, and when I asked the mother how she felt about having a Jewish naming ceremony, she shrugged and said that bringing her Christian faith into it was of no consequence to her or her family; thankfully, everyone had been very accepting.

I thought it was important to dig a little more into her spiritual journey, just to make sure.

She shared that she’d been intensely involved in her church ministry as a teenager, but when she came to the U.S. and met her husband, all that had changed.

Why, I asked?

They looked at each other thoughtfully, and simultaneously said, with a cute, shared laugh, that he had “messed it all up” for her.

Meanwhile, the father has become quite nostalgic for his Jewish childhood and bar mitzvah training and, despite how boring it had been, wants that for their child.

The mother mostly cares about finding and recreating the kind of community she’d had back home with her church. If that’s through a synagogue, she said she’d be perfectly happy.

Fast forward to a week later, and extended family were gathered in a small dining room area. Far away, Malaysian family were on Zoom.

And right from the beginning of the ceremony, the mother started to cry.

Oy. That had not been my intention.

I’d opened with a little niggun/wordless melody from psalm 118, which is part of the Songs of Praise/Hallel, during Sukkot. It seemed appropriate, considering it was the last day of the holiday. 

“Open the gates of Righteousness, so that we may enter, and thank you,” the psalm says.

“Because we have to be the ones to open those ‘gates’ and set so many things right in this precious world.” (Lots of nods in agreement.)

I talked about how all the holidays, from Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah, bring in joy, but also tears and nostalgia as we remember our ancestors with more than one Yizkor service sprinkled in:

“We’re here to celebrate this new baby with joy, and also to remember ancestors for whom this beautiful baby is being named.”

“Also, Sukkot, when we pray for rain, reminds us of the precariousness of life through the temporary shelters we put up; from the onset of pregnancy through the birth, and on and on…do we ever stop worrying?

That’s when I looked over at the mother and saw the tears.

Because it was all so true!

But we were here to bless this baby, to lend support and love to these new parents. to begin to lay the foundation of community the couple needs to bring up a child in such precarious times.

We each put our hands over our heart, the most powerful organ of the body whose energy connects us all, absorbed the loving, healing energy into our palms, and spread it out to the family and the world.

Everyone took turns shaking the lulav, raining down blessings on the baby and the world, holding the etrog, the citrus fruit, often interpreted as a representation of the heart, against our chest. 

The great grandfather held the baby and gently sang her songs in Yiddish. 

When the moment came for naming this child, she received names that honored both her Chinese and her Jewish ancestry.

As the mother explained the Chinese name, she apologetically said something about male lineage—and I thought, “My people have the same problem.”

This week, after many false starts to the New Year (three weeks!), we finally begin Genesis/B’reishit.

We begin at the beginning of the world, as our creation story goes.

In the very first chapter, second verse, the Earth is described as a kind of unformed void, a sort of chaos/וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ/v’ha’aretz hayta tohu va’vohu.

After creating light, and the sky, the water and the land, God said, we will make “adam” (literally meaning creature of earth) in our image, with our likeness: וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ/Va’yomer Elohim na’ase adam b’tzalmeynu, kidmoteynu (Gen.1:26)

The next verse says, “And Elohim made Adam/earth being, in his image; in their image Elohim made them; male and female he made them: וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃: Va’yivra Elohim et ha-adam b’tzalmo; b’tzalam Elohim bara oto zachar u’n’keyva bara otam (Gen.1:27)

What does it mean that Elohim, the first name given for God, is plural? Who’s the “we” that makes humans in “our” likeness?

And if God has no image, then how can we be made in that image?

And how is it that the first impulse is to make man and woman at the same time, as equals, only to change the story later so women know that men have dominion over them—and over all other creatures?

We have a lot of work to do to return to that first impulse to proclaim “We” and “Ours,” instead of “Me” and “Mine.”

We have a lot of work to do to return to a place of equal respect for females—and for all genders—yes, return to that too, perhaps.

It will take a lot of work to get back in touch directly with the land and our food sources.

But, as we know from science, the Earth is constantly correcting the mistakes we humans make as we try so desperately to gain dominion over her—and fail so miserably.

Seeing the way this family cradled and blessed and reveled in the beauty of this new life, welcoming her with open arms, putting aside any possible concerns about each others’ tribes, was a little window into a world where everyone is recognized as created in Elohim’s image–-a world of We, connected to the earth, as we naturally are, living in synchronicity with her—a world where we might leave nature to do its thing of healing in these very chaotic times.

So we ask for the gates of righteousness to open for us, so that we may enter, and make what’s wrong right again–and we will say thank you. And Amen. 

A Simcha & V’zot Ha'bracha

I remember how confused I was when I first learned that the Jewish New Year does not mark the beginning of a new Torah cycle.

In fact, the preparation for the new year, and the ending of the old, seem to blend in to each other, like a watercolor painting where you can’t see the edges of objects clearly, or like concentric circles that overlap in so many places.

All the talk of transformation starts with Elul, a whole lunar month before Rosh Hashanah. Then comes Yom Kippur, and suddenly (yes, that’s how it feels) we’re in the week of Sukkot. We’re overwhelmed by what feels like a barrage of holidays.

It’s not until the end of Sukkot, marked by two days of communal prayer, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, that we read the last parsha of Torah—and the first, in the same day.

Torah ends with blessings in the form of a poem given over by Moses to the Israelites as they are about to cross over into the Promised Land—and finally with Moses’ death.

Joshua, who has now been handed the mantle, will be their new leader. Yet, what will his leadership bring?

It is a combination of sadness, joy, and uncertainty.

And isn’t it a little bit ironic that we read about Moses’ death, our beloved leader, on a day when we joyfully dance into the night, twirling and stomping and jumping with a Torah scroll—a holiday literally named “The Joy of Torah”?

It’s also true that Moses has been preparing to die for a long, long time.

How many times has he announced that he will not be allowed to cross over the Jordan into the Promised Land?

How many times has he repeated the teachings from God to the Israelites as he prepares them for their new life across the river, like a nervous parent who can’t let go?

How many times has he said that he will soon die?

I wonder if Moses is afraid to die—afraid to leave all this undone stuff to someone else, and this annoying, stiff-necked people he has led for so many decades, behind.

Because, even if Moses, unlike the Israelites, has complete faith at this point, he’s still going into the unknown.

And maybe that’s how life always goes, whether we’re the one leaving, like Moses, or entering, like Joshua.

We are excited about a new path we have been pursuing for years, the moment arrives, and we’re stepping into the unknown. No matter how much preparation we’ve had, we still wonder, “Do I know this stuff? Am I fully prepared?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my own rabbinic ordination—an occasion of simcha, of joy—and the fact that I will be officially stepping into a new role in my life in just a few months.

What am I stepping into? How much more do I need to learn? How much time do I have to develop this role? Whom am I meant to serve?

I cried about this to a friend the other day.

“You have your whole life to do this!” is what she said.

To which I replied, “No, not my whole life! I’m already 60!”

To which she replied, “You have the whole rest of your life.”

To which I replied, “Yes, and I don’t know how long that will be; it could be decades, or a year, or a month, or a day.”

The fact is, we never know, even if we start out younger.

I was talking to someone else today who shared her anxiety around her parents’ impending deaths and their refusal to deal with their house. They regularly joke about the proximity of the cemetery where they will be buried; “When we die, all you’ll have to do is roll us down the hill!” Hahahaha.

But they have become angry, threatening to leave the room, when she has tried to talk about death in a serious way.

Instead, they like to give the example of the previous owners of their house whose family got a dumpster and literally threw everything out the windows into the garbage.

“They act like it will be simple to bury them, but they’re leaving an entire house full of stuff. It’s not only thoughtless, it’s wasteful and ecologically irresponsible.” (I paraphrase her words.)

When I asked if they might be afraid of dying, even though they are deeply religious, she considered this for a moment; as much as her mother joked about “coming back” to give her “lots of signs!” and to “watch over her” (more like watching her, with a comical wag of the finger), I wondered how deep their faith was at the core.

What did they really think would happen after they died?

Maybe nothing?

Maybe they would completely cease to exist?

If they knew for sure that they would be back and visit, wouldn’t it be easier to face leaving?

When someone moves away, don’t we promise we’ll come visit, just to lighten the blow, even when we know in our heart that we won’t?

Just as hard, we don’t know how long we have. We constantly gauge decisions based on the expected time limits.

During Sukkot, we are “commanded” to eat and sleep in a Sukkah, a precarious structure that remembers the days in the desert, when we could see the sky at night through our temporary homes.

It’s a joyful time of awareness that we have solid structures to live in now, that we are “free,” mixed with sadness of the memory of hard times—though those living with housing insecurity today would disagree; they’re living a precarious present!

It’s also interesting that a Yizkor service, when we remember those who have gone before us, is worked into the end of Sukkot—and we immediately enter into the new Torah cycle with Simchat Torah, with a sense of great joy and celebration!

Joy and sadness mix together.

In a Yizkor service, we recite psalm 90, with the phrase, לִמְנוֹת יָמֵינוּ, כֵּן הוֹדַע; וְנָבִא, לְבַב חָכְמָה/limnot yameyu, ken hoda; v’navi lavev chochma.

It’s a little complicated to translate with its short phrases strung ungrammatically together, but it basically says, “Teach us to count our days, so that we know, like a prophet, and (or to know, like a prophet who has) a heart of wisdom.”

Basically, we should measure our days, and be smart about how we use our time.

We ask for a heart of wisdom, one that knows how to treasure the present, because, unlike a prophet, we can not see into the end of our days.

We need these reminders because it’s hard to let go.

As the Torah and Moses show us, the past mixes with the present and the future. It goes in cycles, like concentric circles, blending into and overlapping with each other.

The new is not always, or only, joyful. Sometimes we dread it.

The end is not always, or only, sad. Sometimes we can’t wait for it.

The end is not only the end, and the beginning is not only the beginning.

And we are each at the center, barely knowing where we are, and certainly not knowing where we’re going.

I’m leading a baby naming this Sunday, for a baby born right in the middle of this cycle of holidays, when the past and the future, the sadness and the joy, all mix together, reminding us of the continuous cycle of life and death and love that never ends.

This beautiful baby has come into a very precarious world of many unknowns for the future.

But the fact that her family will be gathered around to support her on her journey, carrying with them a heritage of deep faith and culture, is significant. This is the grounding we all seek, whether we have “faith” or not.

My blessing for today is that she, and we all, acquire a heart of wisdom to understand how to appreciate and make the most of our numbered days, and to know in what ways we can serve to ensure a joyful future for all on Earth.

And may we deepen our faith that we can handle this unknown, just as our ancestors did.

Don’t Change/Surely Change (Ha-Azinu & Yom Kippur)

I got some important messages yesterday from Yom Kippur.


I spent the day at home, with services coming through livestream.


As much as I wanted so badly to be in community with friends, my head was very sharply telling me, “No!” (migraine)


On the flip side, despite the migraine, I got up in the morning, showered, and dressed all in white, like I was going to synagogue.


I sank down onto the living room floor, and into the cocoon of my tallis/prayer shawl, which I sometimes think of as “God’s wings” holding me, to pray/daven and try to be cleansed.


The first part of the message I got was about Azazel.


This reading from Leviticus is where we get the idea of the “scapegoat.” This was a special ritual during Temple times to send a goat out into the desert to repent for our sins on Yom Kippur—to take on the responsibility for us--and thus cleanse us of our sins without us having to do much of anything.


During Yom Kippur services, the prayer leader does some of the pleading for us. But we’re supposed to join in as well, in a serious way, taking responsibility for ourselves.


We ask forgiveness for the ways we have wronged, and ways we have hurt each other.


Because when we hurt another, it has long, and wide-reaching repercussions.


I ask, who do we each blame when we don’t want to take responsibility for our own actions—or even our feelings and thoughts?


To take this further; when we are the people hurt by others, do we allow ourselves to feel whatever we feel for as long as we feel it—because hurts have long, wide-reaching repercussions?


And do we take responsibility for working through these feelings, so we can be cleansed of them?


Or do we tell ourselves it’s time to get over it because, "That was a long time ago”?


How harsh is our voice to ourselves?

Another message I got was from two poems by the famous Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai, about his parents.


His mother “was a prophet” without knowing it.


She brought the voice of love and support through harsh judgement, and her many “little predictions came together in one big prophecy that will last until the Vision of the End of Days,” says Yehuda Amichai.

His father was the softer voice of love.

According to Amichai, His father was “God,” who gave him the eleventh and twelfth commandments:


“Don’t change.”


And, “You must surely change.”

On Yom Kippur, we face our own death, thinking of how we would like to be remembered, and we remember those who have died—the harsh and the kind voices that gave us love, withdrew it—or never gave it at all.


On Yom Kippur, we also repeatedly recite the thirteen attributes of God as stated in Exodus: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger…


Yet, as we come to the end of the year’s Torah cycle, these attributes couldn’t seem farther from the truth as represented by Moses.


The parsha Ha-Azinu begins with Moses calling out:

הַאֲזִ֥ינוּ הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וַאֲדַבֵּ֑רָה וְתִשְׁמַ֥ע הָאָ֖רֶץ אִמְרֵי־פִֽ’׃

Ha-Azinu Ha-shamayim va’adabeira v’timshma ha’aretz imrei’fi:

Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; let the Earth hear the words I utter!”

Moses communicates his own and God’s love for the Israelites—but unfortunately, with his harsh voice.


And what follows is a poem that comes out more like damnation (remember last week, when God told Moses to write down a poem?) than love and blessing.


It’s a poem that repeats all the mistakes we’ve made as a people—yet God caught us under God’s wings each time.


On Yom Kippur, we stated our shortcomings repeatedly throughout the day.


We called out, and begged forgiveness—for what we have done to each other—and the Earth (prayers do get updated!)


According to our tradition, we have been cleansed. And I actually did feel cleansed after all that calling out and begging.


But that’s only for today.


Going forward, we must keep up the work—of awareness, so we don’t continue to hurt other.


Going forward, we need to keep up the work of fighting for justice—for people, animals, and the Earth, which only has so much forgiveness in her; the harm we have caused has had far-reaching repercussions.


As a species, we need to preserve the beauty and the health of the world we live in. (Don’t change.)


As individuals, we need to stay grounded in who we are, appreciating our own particular gifts and speaking to ourselves in a kind voice. (Don’t change.)


And we also must evolve in the ways we move in the world, becoming kinder to all beings, even those we disagree with. (Surely change.)


Each one of us. And all of us together.


Don’t change. Surely Change.


Because we don’t want the prophecy of the End of Days to be one of death and destruction on Earth.


The End of Days should be a time when we bring Mashiach/the Messiah into the world through our own actions--taking responsibility.


And as we continue to stumble as a species and as a world, let us make the intention to be the wings of God that catch each other.


May the Heavens and the Earth hear us.

And say Amen. 

Judgement, Jury Duty, & Yom Kippur (& Va-Yeilech)

We never know what the holidays will bring until we have experienced them.

That’s true for life in general. But every year I approach the Holy Days wondering and looking to see what might happen.

This year, something happened on the very first night of Rosh Hashanah.

There had been a sadness, especially for me and my younger daughter.

For me, it was around my mother, and forgiveness—a common theme of the Holy Days. Feelings of guilt for having disconnected from her at the end of her life filled my heart.

The house was filled with delicious smells of Rosh Hashanah food I had worked so hard to prepare.

But soon before lighting the candles, I went into a kind of panic, with literal pain around my heart.

I went into my room to cry, which helped me calm down, but didn’t take away the pain.

Then I went to greet my daughters who had come for the holiday, and my husband (he’s a side note here, yet central to my life).

The transition happened for me soon after, when we all stood around the candles, one flame lit for each of us.

In a moment of tenderness, before saying the blessings, we all held hands.

My younger daughter stated an intention of allowing for pain (so young, so wise—I have to take a little credit).

In that moment, looking at the candles burning brightly, I felt the closing of a circle—a broken link repaired—as we invited in the light.

After we sat down, we blessed the new year and each other, and suddenly that pain in my chest was gone.

We sang, held hands and cried in gratitude for having made it through Covid alive. Though the pandemic is not over, it was a real Shehekhianu (thank you for bringing us to this season again) moment.

The next two days brought more singing, out in the park, and at home.

Sadness and joy mixed together—and lots of good food.

Then I had to transition to Jury Duty.

Let me start by saying, nobody looks forward to Jury Duty, and just about everyone tries to find ways to get out of it.

But then I was surprised to feel awe as I approached the grand building of the municipal district of New York City. And I was in awe to have the privilege of seeing the inside of a beautiful, grand, old courthouse, with its columns and painted, vaulted ceilings: a powerful symbol of our “Great, American Democracy.”

It’s meant to fill us with awe. And it did.

On the way there, as the sun was coming up over these grand buildings, I passed a man wearing a large sign that simply said: “Can the schools just teach children to read?”

Then I passed some people with a huge banner calling out our city’s heritage of corruption among our mayors.

As I was waiting on line to get into the courthouse, a man on a bicycle at the bottom of the stairs screamed out to us, “When will it be enough? How much is too much?”

After that, the day was uneventful, other than worrying about getting assigned to a case.

We didn’t get called until late in the afternoon, and as we were shuffled to a courtroom, all I could think about was how to let the judge know I would be observing Yom Kippur, and couldn’t be on a case.

I never had to get that far.

First, he introduced the case as criminal, and gave a little speech about our service, about bias, and judging fairly based on the evidence, “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

As we stood up to vow with our right hand that we would be truthful in all our answers as potential jurors, I wondered when would be my chance.

At the second question, I froze: “Based on religious belief, does anyone here feel they do not have the right to judge another person?”

My heart started pounding as I wrestled unexpectedly.

Did I?

Would I have to say I was Jewish?

Was Jewishness enough?

Would I be a weird Jew to state this?

Would they even believe me?

Yet, my beliefs do come from my Jewish practice, which has been to catch myself when I’m judging, and try to put myself in someone else’s shoes;

What do I know of their life, their circumstances?

Who am I to judge?

Who am I?

Silence all around me.

Before I could decide whether to be the outlier, the judge moved on:

Who among us felt they could not judge a police officer’s testimony fairly?

That was easy! I’d stated this in the past—as the outlier—the last time I went for Jury Duty: “I don’t trust the criminal justice system,” I’d said.

It was hard, being the only one to stand, but I’d done it. Why was I afraid now?

I stared at the floor, still wrestling with my feelings around the first question, and started to slowly raise my hand for this one.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the person next to me also raising their hand. As I looked up, gathering strength, I was shocked to realize that half of the potential jurors had done the same!

Were others using this as a potential “out” for Jury Duty, or were we just a reflection of our times—and gathering strength from each other?

We were told to rise, and they dismissed us, one by one, no more questions asked.

The High Holy Days, and especially Yom Kippur, are all about forgiveness, and recognizing the True Judge.

They are all about awe: making ourselves small in the grand scheme of things, and allowing for vulnerability.

They are about facing our potential death, and vowing to live from a place of awareness of our actions and thoughts going forward.

Too much brow-beating can be harmful, but this is an opportunity to put things and ourselves into perspective. It’s about gratitude for having had more time, and vowing not to squander the future.

The Torah reading that transitions us into Yom Kippur this week is Va-Yeilekh. Moses tells the people again that he is about to die. God reminds Moses of this fact again, too. God and Moses both pass on the message: “do not be afraid, for you are not alone.”

And God has Moses write down a song for the people, a poem, a “sefer ha-torah,” a written teaching, to place beside the Ark of the Covenant.

This written teaching will be a witness to the people when they stray in the future.

As we approach Yom Kippur, some of us may need another person to forgive us.

Some of us may need to forgive ourselves.

Some of us may need to have another person witness our stumbling, and gently support us as we grow.

We may also ask, for the world, for our country, how much is too much and when will it be enough?

We may be filled with awe as we approach this work and these questions.

But even as we do these things, we can know that, even when we feel like outliers, we are never alone.

May Yom Kippur carry meaning—and the surprise of broken links repaired.

Tears of Gratitude & Nitzavim

Something happened this week that brought tears of gratitude to my eyes.

During our weekly Zoom meeting with my fellow ordination cohort, the new dean, Rabbi Darren Kleinberg, was talking about inclusiveness in Judaism (and yes, my ordination from ALEPH is coming in January!) 

Rabbi Darren told us that he’d been “publicly disowned” by the Orthodox institution that ordained him. The problem was that he participated in a beit din with rabbis that didn’t fit into the “correct” (my word) category of both Orthodox and male. This was for the conversion of an adopted child.

He talked about how many people have been hurt by Judaism’s rules around who can be considered a Jew and who cannot.

And I can tell you of just two very close examples in my life:

One is my husband, who has passionately embraced Judaism since before we were married thirty-four years ago.

Though he feels Jewish, certain barriers he cannot overcome would make many state that he is not a “real Jew.” 

Though I have argued and protested and defended his right, even wrote about it, I have sadly participated in passing on some of the hurtful ideas I had inherited about who could “pass the Jewish test” (and for this I have told him, I am very, very sorry).

Another example is my nephew, who was born to a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother.

He recently was on a Birthright trip to Israel with his Jewish girlfriend.

According to them, my nephew was the only participant in his cohort endlessly asking questions, full of curiosity around Judaism, which he knows so little about but wants so much to learn.

And the leaders of his group told him that he’s not Jewish because his mother isn’t. He was so upset, so hurt, and can’t stop talking about it.

My brother’s reaction was, “What would the Nazis say?”

My reaction was, “Not according to the Bible; patrilineal descent is all there is in Torah!

So, here’s what made me cry: 

While acknowledging the significance of rituals of transition, which might be a matter of personal choice, Dean Darren said that he was not interested in making people jump through hoops to become Jewish; if they feel Jewish, and want to participate in Jewish ritual and community, that’s good enough for him. 

There has been so much pain for both me and my husband over the years regarding this issue, and to hear Darren say this—the tears of gratitude say it all.

He went on to tell us of a recent scandal of a German cantor who spoke about the “problem” of too many converts to Judaism.

Then I heard a podcast episode on Identity/Crisis called Yeshiva vs. Pride. Yeshiva University sued the Supreme Court in order to refuse to recognize an LGBTQ club for students—and won.

Yet, after years of Reparative Therapy to “cure” queer people of their “mental disorder,” some Orthodox institutions have been forced to recognize its utter failure, and the fact that queer people are not going away—as much as they wish they would. Being queer is just part of the human condition.

I want to tell you about the name of my website, lnegditamid.us.

I took the phrase, “L’negdi Tamid,” from Psalm 16, and the famous line, “שִׁוִּ֬יתִי יְהֹוָ֣ה לְנֶגְדִּ֣י תָמִ֑יד–Shiviti YHVH l’negdi tamid: I set God (which for me represents the sacred) before me continually, or over and over again.

I chose this name because it is the intention with which I want to live. I want to commit over and over to living a holy life.

What does it mean to commit over and over? And what is a holy life?

Let’s start with inclusivity.

When I was looking for a website domain, I found that “.com” was already taken, but “.us” was available.

“Perfect!” my daughter said as she helped me; “‘Us’ includes everyone, and isn’t that what you’re all about?”

This week’s parsha begins with Moses telling the people that, as they stand (nitzavim) before God today, they are about to “cross over,” or into, God’s Covenant—with all who dwell among them, stranger/foreigner/outsider included!

It is stated throughout the Torah, again and again, that the Israelites are in covenant with God.

Yet, time and again, God expresses immense disappointment with God’s people, flaring with anger, threatening to destroy them or cut them off.

Many instances in Torah, God does, in fact, kill thousands of God’s “own people.” 

And time and again, God is convinced (by Moses) to calm down and give the people another chance—to try again.

Still, God’s Covenant is conditional on the stipulations enumerated throughout the Torah. 

And if we should think it too baffling to fulfill them, it says in this week’s parsha–too much of a wonder/niflayt for us, too out of reach…no, it says in Nitzavim, it is not in the heavens, nor across the sea; it is right here in front of us, in our mouth and in our heart. 

The continuing frustration is clear; why do we make this so difficult?

Still, if we can manage to fulfill them, then God will restore, or return, our fortunes to us (literally, that which we have captured–ugh), and return the compassion and love God has for us. 

And God will gather us together again (from the other peoples among whom we have been scattered—ugh again).

In Hebrew:

וְשָׁ֨ב יְהֹוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ אֶת־שְׁבוּתְךָ֖ וְרִחֲמֶ֑ךָ וְשָׁ֗ב וְקִבֶּצְךָ֙ מִכׇּל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֧ר הֱפִֽיצְךָ֛ יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ שָֽׁמָּה׃–V’shav YHVH elohecha et sh’vut’cha v’richamecha v’shav v’kibetz’cha mi kol ha’amim asher hefitz’cha adonai eloheicha shama (Deut. 30:3)

In this phrase, the Hebrew word return, also meaning again, שָׁ֨ב/shav, is used in each instance, over and over. 

There are many reasons people give for leaving “organized religion,” and for leaving Judaism, or for not joining a Jewish community.

Among these are; feeling unwelcome; the idea of chosenness, or being special, singled out from the rest of the world; a violent, punishing God; and the idea that God can take God’s love away from us. Plus all the horrible ways our forefathers and mothers act, those whom we are to emulate.

I agree with all of these reasons, and didn’t participate in Judaism for many years as a result. 

The Torah is an ancient book for which I make no excuses. 

Yet, it reflects the human condition, and our present-day society in ways many of us would like to deny, like when we hear politicians say, “That’s not us.”

Well, it is us, because we just did that thing!

Judaism is my heritage, and I choose to play an active role in it, and argue and fight to defend those excluded. 

Because there are still so many messages that need to be heard from it, like that we are the ones to do the deep spiritual work of being able to see all other human beings as equally sacred. It’s not up to some deity we can’t see.

No one can do it for us.

And we are to do it with our hearts and with our mouths, which means seeing others through our hearts, with love, and speaking in ways that bring peace. 

That’s not easy work. We don’t make it hard. It just is. Because we’re human. We suffer from the condition of being human!

So we need to keep coming back to it, over and over again.

The word “return/T’shuva” is an important part of the High Holy Days. This is the big time of year to examine ourselves and “return to God,” to recommit to living a holy and sacred life.

As we approach Rosh Hashanah in just a few days, at a time when so many people are being told they are not welcome in our country and in our communities, let us enter with the commitment to commit–over and over–to live a holy life, setting the sacred before us every day, seeing each human being as sacred, opening our hearts to love and take action that shows that all are welcome—as is commanded in the Torah—and maybe bring tears of gratitude to some one else’s eyes.

L’Shana Tova to all, and to all a good Shabbos!

Milk, Honey & Curses (Ki Tavo)

This week I have had the privilege to be on the beach on the Long Island Sound—to be in nature for a second time this summer as it comes to a close.

The ocean, rain, sun, clouds, the gentle sway of the tide, the feel of my feet sinking into the sand, walking through the crunch of shells, seeing the moon rise, the sun set.

I’ve seen so many wonders, felt the restorative power of them strengthening my body—and felt the blessing of being with an old friend who has brought so much blessing into my life over three decades.

Together, we have felt the blessing of having lived so many decades.

I keep thinking, I will have to store these many blessings up to bring back with me to the city.

But then I remind myself that I must continue to look for and find them there when I get back.

In contrast, the parsha this week is full of curses. The dire warnings seem to never stop.

Ki Tavo, “when you come” into the land, a land of milk and honey, this is how you should act, and the faith you must have.

If you don’t, says Moses of God, instead of delighting in our abundance and numbers, like stars in the sky, or grains of sand on a beach…

Well, we know the drill: plagues, chronic disease, uncertainty, panic, scorching heat, drought, starvation, infertility, death.

And being scattered throughout the world.

After each curse, we are to say, Amen.

There are some blessings in the parsha as well, if we follow in God’s ways, taking care not to lead the blind astray, for instance.

Towards the very end of the reading, Moses reminds the people that they have seen the wonders that God made happen before their very eyes.

“Yet, to this day, God has not given you a heart to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear.”

(וְלֹא־נָתַן֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה לָכֶ֥ם לֵב֙ לָדַ֔עַת וְעֵינַ֥יִם לִרְא֖וֹת וְאׇזְנַ֣יִם לִשְׁמֹ֑עַ עַ֖ד הַיּ֥וֹם הַזֶּֽה׃—v’lo natan adonai lakhem lev la’da’at, v’eynei lir’ot, v’azna’yim lish’mo’ah ad hayom hazeh.)

I guess God left this work to us.

As we approach the High Holy Days, and work on these in ourselves, I send out the blessings from the parsha:

May we be blessed in the city, and blessed in the country.

May we be blessed by the produce of our land.

May we be blessed in our basket and our kneeding bowl.

May we be blessed in our comings and blessed in our goings.

And may we be blessed with open hearts that understand, with eyes that see, and ears that hear.

May we take the time to notice the marvels all around us, in each person and place where we are, wherever we find ourselves, every day.

May we each participate in increasing the abundance of blessing in the world, creating a land of milk and honey for all, a world where we are not dispersed, but walking together, hand in hand.

And may our blessings be strong enough to overcome the curses with our resounding "Amen!"