Parshat Toldot

Parshat Toldot
Thanksgiving 2008/ Erev Rosh Chodesh Kislev 5769

"And Isaac loved Esau... and Rebekah loved Jacob" (Gen 25:28)

Parshat Toldot is a story of unwise parental love and the tragedy it engenders. At the beginning of the story, Isaac and Rebekah spend many lonely years praying for a child, and their prayers are finally answered with twins-- Esau and Jacob.

Rebekah and Isaac's long childlessness ought to make them particularly grateful for both of their boys. Yet, this isn't the case. From the outset, the parents divide their loyalties and their love. Isaac favors Esau, his rough-and-tumble son, the skillful hunter and family provider. Rebekah prefers her mild-mannered Jacob, who the text tells us liked to stay in the camp, presumably in her company.

The rest of the parshah is one long tale of the deceit, trickery, and misery that follows from Isaac and Rebekah's unequal application of love. By the end of the story, the family is irrevocably broken-- with Jacob on the run and Esau vowing revenge. What began with so much promise ends with alienation.

The Book of Genesis is the story of the disastrous consequences of treating love like a zero-sum game, a limited commodity which must be rationed out and fought over. Again and again we read about characters who struggle for limited love-- Cain and Abel, Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah, Joseph and his brothers. In every case the result is violence, loss, and grief.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner writes in his classic Honey from the Rock that learning that love is not a limited commodity is the great challenge of growing up. He writes:

"Is this not the great childhood problem-- and therefore the great human problem: To learn that it is good for you when other people love other people besides you? That I have a stake in their love. That I get more when others give to others."

Rabbi Kushner challenges us to put aside out childish assumption that love is a zero-sum game and instead invites us to imagine ourselves as part of a web of interconnection, in which all the love that we give out inevitably comes back to us. If our ancestors had only realized this basic human truth, the Book of Genesis would read very, very differently.

On this Thanksgiving, may we fully open ourselves to the blessings of family, friendship, and love.

Parshat Vayera

Parshat Vayera
November 14, 2008/ 16 Cheshvan 5769

In Parshat Vayera we read the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible does not give a clear reason why the cities are destroyed, only that God hears of their sinfulness and decides to act.

Before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, God tells His plans to Abraham. Perhaps surprisingly for God, Abraham does not respond by meekly accept the decree. Quite the opposite, he initiates a lengthy debate on behalf of the doomed cities. Over and over he demands that God be absolutely sure that he is not wiping out the innocent together with the guilty. In one of the most eloquent protests in history, Abraham cries out: “Will not the Judge of all the Earth act with Justice?!” (Gen. 18:25)

Abraham’s challenge eventually fails, and the cities are indeed destroyed. However, the Jewish tradition is unstinting in its praise of his “holy chutzpah.” The Sages see Abraham’s willingness to protest against the Master of the Universe as a sign of the depth of his moral character and one of the reasons that he is fit to be the Father of our people.

In college, I learned a beautiful story, whose source I have been searching for ever since, which suggests that Abraham was not the first person to protest outside of Sodom:

“Long before Abraham came along, there was a certain man, who used to stand outside the gates of Sodom and cry out against it. Day after day, year after year, the man would stand there, all by himself, pleading and demanding that the people change their ways. Once, after many years, a group of people came to the man and demanded to know what he was still doing there-- hadn’t he realized that his protests wouldn’t change anything? The man replied: “I came to Sodom to try to change them-- and I have long since realized that that won’t happen. However, I must keep trying, because if I leave, they will have changed me.”

The same year that learned this story, I also had my first experiences with political protest. During the many months leading up to the Iraq War, I joined with millions of people around the world in protests and vigils that asked President Bush to halt the relentless march toward war. I don’t think that anyone really believed that those protests would change his eventual decision, but we went nonetheless. Silence would have been assent.

Our world faces so many seemingly insurmountable challenges. And truthfully, each lone individual can only do so much to overcome them. However, there is not excuse not to try. The Jewish tradition demands that we exercise some holy chutzpah-- that we be willing to stand up and demand justice, even from the Master of the World. We may not always achieve the outcome we desire, but at the very least, we can remain the kind of people who get back up and try again.

Parshat Lech Lecha

Parshat Lech Lecha
November 6, 2008/ 9 Cheshvan 5769

Parshat Lech Lecha introduces us to Abraham, the man who is often called the "Father of Monotheism." Jews, Christians, and Muslims all look to him as the first person in history to recognize the One God.

The Bible, however, is silent about how Abraham came to that faith. In this puzzling silence, many rabbinic legends (midrashim) have emerged. One of the most popular of these traditional stories says that even as a child Abraham rejected his father's idolatry.

In Beresheet Rabbah, the rabbis imagine that Terach, Abraham's father, was a seller of idols. One day, he put his young son in charge of the store. As soon as Abraham's father left, the boy took a hammer and smashed all of the statues, except for the largest one among them, and then he placed the hammer into that one's hands. When Terach returned to the store he was horrified and demanded to know what his son had done. Abraham replied: "I didn't do anything! That big one over there got mad at the others and smashed them all with that hammer." His father yelled back: "That's impossible. Idols can't feel or move!" To that, Terach's witty (and fearless) son retorted: "Do you hear what you're saying?! How can you possibly believe in them?"

This midrash is funny and sweet, but it doesn't really answer our questions about the origins of Abraham's faith. This week, Rabbi Ed Romm of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, introduced me to a beautiful, modern midrash that suggests that if we want to understand the Father of Monotheism, the story we should try to recover is not the story of his childhood relationship with his father, but rather his relationship with his mother. Yakov Azriel, a modern poet, invites us to imagine a woman who is completely absent from the text, but whose silent influence just might continue to shape all of our lives:

Abraham's Mother
by Yakov Azriel, "Threads From A Coat of Many Colors: Poems on Genesis"

Abraham's mother (let's call her Binah "Understanding") --
Was it she who taught Abraham
To ask why and why not?
In her lullabies,
Rocking him in a simple cradle,
Singing to him of little goats and raisins and almonds,
Did she also mock the idols,
Whisper questions with no answers?

Abraham's mother (let's call her Emunah "Faith) --
Was it she who first perceived
Beyond the facade of wind and storm
A greater power blows?
Was it her insight that showed a little boy
Not to bow to stars
But let his own soul
Shine?

Abraham's mother (let's call her Tikvah "Hope")--
Did she smile behind her veil
When the youth smashed his father's icons?
Was it she who supplied the hammer and the ax?

Abraham's mother (let's call her Ima "Mother") --
Did she feel pride, or sadness, or triumph
When her son, hearing God's voice and choosing the route to Jerusalem,
Packed his belongings and left home?
Did she whisper, "God be with you?"
Was this her vindication?

Abraham's mother--
Is all we have
Hers?