Parshat Noah

Parshat Noah
October 30, 2008/Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan 5769

When Noah and his family emerged from the Ark—they must have come out as deeply traumatized people.

How could they not have been-- they were eyewitnesses to the destruction of the world. They must have heard cries. They must have seen bodies. It must have been more than any human being could emotionally bear.

God offers them, and through them us, a remarkably psychologically insightful comfort. God says:

"For all the days of the Earth
Sowing and reaping,
Cool and warmth,
Summer and winter,
Day and night,
These things will never cease." (Gen 8:22)

On a simple level, God is promising never again to destroy the world. But on a deeper level, God is telling the survivors that they can count on the regularity of nature as they heal and rebuild. God acknowledges that while the work ahead of the will be extremely hard, they can rely and hold onto the unchanging cycles of life.

None of us can truly imagine the depth or breadth of Noah's trauma. Yet, I imagine that most of us have, at some point in our lives, experienced the feeling of the world crashing down around us. We have been lonely, we have been hurt, and we have grieved.

When we are in pain, there is something comforting about things that are regular and familiar. Even though our personal world feels broken, we know that the sun will set and the sun will rise, the seasons will change, and nature will go on in its way. We may be spinning wildly, but the ground below our feet remains rooted. We can grasp onto that fact and we can draw strength from it.

Jewish mourning practices are predicated in this basic idea, that people in pain require regularity and normalcy to help them return to life. The first thing a mourner is required to do, upon returning home from the cemetery, is to eat a meal. In that simple act, they are participating the basic human cycle of huger and eating, just as they have every day of their lives. Similarly, at the end of the seven days of shiva, the mourner must go out and take a walk. They have to see the sky and the sun and other people and growing things. They have to be reminded that world is continuing in its way, and so eventually will they. In its great wisdom, our tradition insists that ordinary things can help to facilitate healing.

I try to imagine the emotions that Noah and his family felt when they looked ahead at the momentous task of rebuilding their lives. They must have felt overwhelmed, terrified, confused. I hope that God's promise brought them some measure of peace.

When we are in pain, when we feel lost or overwhelmed, may we be blessed to be able to grasp hold of something solid—the cycles of the day, of the year, of our lives—and may we find in it the strength to face the challenges that lie ahead of us.

Parshat Beresheet

Parshat Beresheet
October 24, 2008/24 Tishrei 5769

"Your brother's blood cries out at me from the ground!" (Genesis 4:10)

A few days ago, we celebrated Simchat Torah, the festival of ending the annual reading of the Torah and the beginning of a new cycle. Consequently, this week we no longer find ourselves wandering in the Desert, but back once again at the Beginning of the World.

One of the most famous accounts from Parshat Beresheet is the story of Cain and Abel. When God favors Abel's offering over that of his brother Cain, the elder brother commits the first murder in human history. When God shows up and asks Cain about the location of Abel, Cain feigns ignorance saying: "I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?" God responds by calling his bluff: "What have you done? Your brother's blood cries out at me from the ground!" Cain is cursed to wander forever as punishment for his crime.

There are voices in the Jewish tradition, which suggest that Cain did not get a fair deal. After all, Cain had no prior experience with death, therefore it seems unjust that God holds him responsible for a crime he didn't even know that he could commit.

One midrash (rabbinic legend) goes even further, it suggests that while Cain really isn't to blame, Someone else is:

"Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: This is a difficult thing to say and it is impossible to say it clearly [so I will use a parable]: Once two athletes were wrestling in front of the king. If the king wanted, the two could be separated, but the king didn't want them separated, and one killed the other. The loser cried out as he died: 'Who will get justice for me from the king?' That is why it is written: 'Your brother's blood cries out at me from the ground'" (Genesis Rabbah 12:9)

This Midrash places the blame for Abel's death squarely with God. God is compared to an indifferent king, who might have separated the dueling brother's before the bloody end, but failed to do so. Abel's blood isn't crying out to God about Cain's guilt, it's crying out against God, accusing Him of negligence!

What I love about this Midrash is that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, one of the great sages and mystics of the Jewish tradition, sees no contradiction between his own deep religiosity and a his willingness to accuse God of being unfair. Many of us have internalized the message that being religious means meekly accepting tragedy as "God's will." The Midrash challenges that assumption and teaches us that piety does not mean being a doormat-- crying out at God is sometimes exactly what the religious conscience demands.

Our Tradition grants us permission to be angry at God, to question and to challenge. That is not an expression of lack of piety-- rather, it's the highest embodiment of what it means to be Am Yisrael, the People who Wrestle with God.

Parshat Nitzavim

Parshat Nitzavim

Sept 26, 2008/26 Elul 5768

"I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse-- choose life!" (Deut 30:19)

It is already late on Friday afternoon here in Israel, the close of my second week of this year-long adventure. I have only a few minutes before I will go to celebrate Shabbat with my family in Haifa-- so no deep philosophy from me this week.

Instead, I'm passing on a poem. Rabbi Shawn Fields-Meyer hooked me on a poet named Mary Oliver last year. As I read and re-read her poetry, I find that her words are as profound as any prayer. This is a poem she wrote about the imperative to really choose life, even in the face of death. I think it is a beautiful meditation for heading into this holy, reflective week.

Shanah Tovah,

Adam

When Death Comes

by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Parshat Ki Tavo

Parshat Ki Tavo
September 19, 2008/ 19 Elul 5768

"Now if you will listen, truly listen, to the voice of God..." (Deut 28:1)

One of the stylistic features of Biblical Hebrew is that it often repeats key verbs twice in order to emphasize their importance. Traditional commentators, who operate from a paradigm in which not a single word in the Torah is without the possibility of meaning, find profound insights in many of these seemingly unnecessary repetitions.

In this week's portion, Ki Tavo, we are instructed that if we listen to God's commandments, then we will enjoy numerous blessings. This is a theme which is articulated again and again throughout the Book of Deuteronomy. However, in this instance the verb "sh'ma," "to listen," is repeated twice, making a proper translation something close to: "if you will listen, truly listen..."

The S'fat Emet, the Hasidic commentary of Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter of Ger, suggests that the dual use of the verb "to listen" teaches us that while the voice of God is inside us all the time, we are often unable or unwilling to hear it. He writes:

"The living soul constantly hears the voice of the Torah, but this too is hidden from us. This is why the verse says: 'listen, listen'-- listen to that which you already are hearing." (S'fat Emet, Ki Tavo #2, trans. Rabbi Art Green)

In more down-to-earth language, I think that he means that our heart knows a lot more than our head is either willing or able to accept. Sometimes we all make choices which we know deep down are wrong, but in our head we find a way to justify them. We all have dreams that our reason ignores or tells us are impossible. We all know what it feels like to have a gut feeling about something or someone, but often we shut it down before we can truly listen to its message.

This parsha teaches us that many blessings are available to us as soon as we begin to listen to that which we are already hearing-- as soon as we open our minds to the wisdom that we already hold inside of us. This Shabbat, let's all make a point of trying to listen to what our hearts and guts are telling us-- it just might be the Voice of God.

Parshat Shoftim

Parshat Shoftim
September 5, 2008/ 5 Elul 5768

"When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them." (Deut. 20:19)

Parshat Shoftim is the source of a key principle in Jewish law-- bal tashchit -- one must not destroy. The rabbinic tradition understands this as a general prohibition against any wanton destruction or unnecessary wasting of resources. As the great Jewish legal philosopher Maimonides explains:

"Whoever breaks vessels, or tears garments, or destroys a building, or clogs a well, or does away with food in a destructive manner violates the negative commandment of bal tashchit." (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 6:10)

In modern times, many have understood this prohibition as the basis for a religious environmental ethic. They argue that our reckless attitude toward the Earth's precious and limited resources is not only a bad idea, it is a sin. One particularly fascinating element of this contemporary understanding of bal tashchit is that Jewish thinkers of all ideological backgrounds, from Reform to Orthodox, have come to similar conclusions about the religious necessity of environmental conservation.

This week, in place of a full d'var torah (I'm in the midst of packing for Israel), I want to share a text from Sampson Raphael Hirsch, the ideological founder of Modern Orthodox Judaism. His words speak with force and eloquence about the religious mandate to be stewards of our planet. We ignore them at our own peril.

Shabbat Shalom.

Sampson Raphael Hirsch
Horeb #56

"God's call proclaims to you, "Do not destroy anything! Be a mentsh [good person]! Only if you use the things around you for wise human purposes, sanctified by the word of My teaching, only then are you a mentsh and have the right over them which I have given you as a human. However, if you destroy, if you ruin, at that moment you are not a human but an animal and have no right to the things around you.

I lent them to you for wise use only; never forget that I lent them to you. As soon as you use them unwisely, be it the greatest or the smallest, you commit treachery against My world, you commit murder and robbery against My property, you sin against Me!" This is what God calls unto you, and with this call does God represent the greatest and the smallest against you and grants the smallest as also the greatest a right against your presumptuousness...

In truth, there is no one nearer to idolatry than one who can disregard the fact that things are the creatures and property of God, and who presumes also to have the right, having the might, to destroy them according to a presumptuous act of will."

Parshat Re'eh

Parshat Re’eh
August 29, 2008/ 28 Av 5768

“See, I place before you this day a blessing and a curse.” (Deut 11:26)

This Monday begins of the Hebrew month of Elul, the period of reflection and introspection that leads up to the High Holidays. The dominant theme of this time is teshuvah-- the process of closing the gap between our past actions and our visions of our best selves.

Parshat Re’eh begins with an admonition to choose blessing over curse by choosing to listen to God’s voice rather than ignore it. The S’fat Emet, a masterwork of Hassidic thought written by Rav Yehuda Leib Alter of Ger, focuses on this line and argues that it teaches us a fundamental lesson about teshuvah.

He teaches that when the Torah says: “I place before you this day,” it does not mean one specific day in the ancient past, but rather that every single day we have the choice between blessing and curse, between living up to our God-given potential for goodness and squandering that gift. It is a choice that we have to make again and again, every day of our lives.

Sometimes, inevitably, we will make the wrong choices. The gift of teshuvah is that yesterday’s bad choices do not need to define our tomorrows. We always have the power to make new choices, to set a new moral course for ourselves. In Judaism, we are influenced by our past, but we are not bound by it.

Over this next month of Elul, may we seize the opportunity to examine the path that we are on and know that we have the opportunity, this day and every day, for a new beginning. And that freedom is truly a blessing.

Parshat Ekev

Parshat Ekev
August 22, 2008/ 21 Av 5768

Baruch t’hiyeh mi-kol ha-amim/ You will be blessed from all other peoples. (Deut 7:14)

This somewhat ambiguously worded verse from the beginning of Parshat Ekev suggests two possible relationships between Israel and the other nations of the world, and more broadly, two possible modes of human relations generally.

The first way to read this pasuk is as a promise that Israel will be blessed above the other nations of the world. That is to say, if the Jewish people is faithful to God’s commandments, then they will be the favored among God’s children and will receive the most bountiful rewards. In fact, this appears to be the contextual (p’shat) meaning of this text-- given that it is found amidst a collection of blessings which God pledges to bestow if they are obedient.

However, it is a matter of Jewish religious conviction that no verse in the Torah is relegated to only following its contextual meaning. Another possibility, and one favored by the Rabbis in Deuteronomy Rabbah, is to understand the verse this way: “You will be blessed by all of the other nations of the world.” In this understanding of the verse, the author of the blessing is not God, but rather other human beings. If Israel behaves in a holy manner, then the other nations of the world will experience their goodness and call them a blessing.

This verse provides two ways of relating to those around us. One way to approach others is as competitors for prosperity and blessing. In a world of scarce resources, only some of us can receive the full measure of good things, and so we are out to live in such a way as to gain the greatest advantage. Another way of approaching others is as potential allies. In this way of looking at things, the world is full of blessings if we will only share them. The goal is to live in such a way that we are blessings to one another-- that my presence in the world enhances your life and your presence in the world enhances mine.

As with any teaching from the Torah, no one interpretation is correct. There is a time for competition and a time for cooperation, a time to be the best and a time to seek to celebrate the best in others. This Shabbat, may we be greatly blessed and may we seek to be a blessing to those around us.