Bereshit: Genesis 1.1-6.8

Creation and Relationship

Beginnings are a very powerful time in Judaism.  I guess the best place to learn about them is at THE BEGINNING.  When the Torah describes God creating human beings God says something strange: "Let us make humans".  The classic Jewish commentaries ask: "Why us?"  Clearly the Torah sees God as only One.  Who is God talking to?  Rash"i, Probably the Torah's most famous commentator says that God wants to use the humble "we".  Though it is God making humans, humans are such an incredible creation that God teaches us humility by saying "Let us make the human."  I can't do it alone. 

I think there may be another answer also. For us humans, creation of other human beings always requires relationship.  Sex is a manifestation of deep relationship and only through it can we create as God did.  Perhaps the Torah is teaching us that new creations require relationships to make them so.  

We are all now on the brink of something very new, and hopefully very creative.  To make this not just another year but a truly new creation, one that will be profound, requires these 2 things, humility and relationship.  May you merit the humility to learn from your teachers, and the ability to have deep relationships with those in your community through which you can learn so much and create something big.

Bereshit 2

Science and Creation

"In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the land."  Rashi (11 century) comments, "...The Torah is not attempting to describe the order of the creation...for if it was how could the Torah say, 'the spirit of G-d hovered over the water,' before it has spoken of the creation of the waters...thus it must be concluded that the Torah is not trying to tell us about the order of the creation at all."  This Rash"i seems a bit unconventional though it is a similar approach to that of Maimonides in the Guide to the Perplexed where he writes that if he had philosophically agreed with Aristotle that the world had never been created, he would have understood the story of creation in the Torah metaphorically. 

Today there are many arguments as to the need to teach creationism or science.  So many other religious people and indeed some of our fellow religious Jews may be apt to put their critical and scientific thinking on a back burner when it comes to studying Torah.    But the Torah wants us to keep our wits intact, not to shy from struggle when things are difficult to understand.  We believe the Torah is G-d's word, and our best spiritual guide, yet we do not compromise our G-d given minds and abilities, and our intellectually honest desire to make sense of both the text and our world.  Indeed, when we are willing to engage all parts of ourselves, all that we know in the struggle to understand Torah, only then is the world that was created from the Torah nearer to completion.

Berashit 3

Adam and Eve: Two Stories, Two Personalities

In this week's Torah portion, Berashit, the first humans, Chava and Adam are created.  The story of their creation is told twice in the Torah, the first in chapter 1 and the second in chapter 2, with many differences.  In the first story Adam and Eve are created at the same time in the image of G-d.  They are commanded to harness the world and rule over the creatures.   End of story.  In the second telling, Adam is created first from dirt.  G-d then breathes into him the 'breath of life.”   Adam is lonely.  G-d tries to find him a mate by creating all the animals but to no avail.  Finally G-d makes Eve from Adam's side and Adam immediately realizes that she is right for him.   G-d puts them in the Garden of Eden to watch over it and tend it.  The snake comes, they sin and are exiled.  According to Rabbi Joseph Solovetchik these two very different stories are metaphors for different types of humans, different paradigmatic personalities and approaches to life and the world.

This Shabbat give some thought to which story resonates most with you and why.  What can we learn from each about how to live our lives and how to achieve holiness and fulfillment?  May it be a Shabbat of great beginnings!

Noach: Genesis 6.9-11.32

The Power of Prayer

This week's Torah portion is Noah.  Many of the commentaries on this portion focus on Prayer.  But what does prayer have to do with Noah and the flood?  The answer I think lies in a question that is often asked about Noah: Was he really a righteous man compared to Abraham, or only righteous compared to the terrible people surrounding him (see Rash”i Genesis 6:9)? 

Indeed, Noah is the man who never speaks and Abraham is the man known for speaking up.  When God tells Abraham that He is going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Amorah, Abraham speaks up in their defense.  But when God tells Noah that He is going to destroy the world, Noah is silent.  It is precisely here, in the portion of Noah, that we must learn instruction for how to speak up, how to pray, and the power of words.  Only in us speaking and praying with true depth, not just seeing prayer as a reading of words, but as an intense, meditative Godly process can we create a tikun, a fixing, for the sin of Noah, the sin of silent obedience.

Lech Lecha: Genesis 12.1-17.27

Becoming a Vessel

This week's Torah portion is Lech Lecha in which God tells Abraham to leave his land, his family and his birthplace, and "go to a land which I will show you."   Why, ask the commentaries, doesn't God just tell him where he is being led; to the Land of Israel?  Why all the mystery?  The Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger (19c.), answers that there is something valuable to be learned from following without full knowledge.  Abraham is forced to give up so much with out retaining control over his destiny.  There is great value in making oneself a vessel for the will of the Divine, letting go of our need for control and dominance.  At times, it is only through this nullification of the self that we can become fully open to spiritual experience.  May we merit a Shabbat of letting go of ourselves and our ties to all the physical, to become vessels of reception for the spiritual.

Vayera: Genesis 18.1-22.24

Abraham and Sara’s Tent

In the beginning of this week's Torah portion (Vayara) we find Abraham talking to G-d. Suddenly he sees three nomads coming toward him. Immediately Abraham runs out to greet them, brings them into his open tent and cooks them a meal. (It is this preoccupation with over feeding people that deems him the first Jew.) In contrast to Noah, whose place is a hermetically sealed ark, Abraham's place is an open tent encouraging hospitality. The commentaries suggest that perhaps this is why the world was destroyed in Noah's day and not in Abraham's, and why Abraham was the first Jew and not Noah.

We live at a time of great strife and we must live up to the challenge of Abraham, keeping our Jewish mission to be open and giving like Abraham and not sealed off and indifferent like Noah.  This attitude in Judaism is called chesed or kindness and is the source of many mitzvoth.  This week choose one new mitzvah of kindness to do toward another person.  Just one action.  In the merit of our chesed may the world merit peace and holiness.

Vayera 2

Outspokenness and Obedience

In this week's Torah portion, Vayerah, God tells Abraham that he is going to destroy the city of Sodom.  Abraham's response is, "Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked?  Perhaps there are 50 righteous people in the city...far be it from You, to kill the righteous with the wicked...will the judge of the entire world not do justly (Genesis 18:24)?"  God agrees with Abraham, though after bargaining God down to 10 righteous people it turns out there aren't that many.  Latter in the portion God tells Abraham "Take Isaac your son, whom you love, and bring him as an offering on the mountain which I will show you (Genesis 22:2).” Abraham does not reply to God but gets up early the next morning to do God's bidding.  (In the end Isaac is not killed, and so we are all here).  The question we must ask is:  What is the Torah teaching us?  Why in one place does Abraham plead with God for the lives of the Sodomites and yet say nothing when God tells him to sacrifice his son Isaac (Isaac was 37 years old at the time)? 

Perhaps there is a time to stand up, even to take God to task ("Will the judge of all the world not do justly?"), and a time to be a humble servant.  Perhaps they are both sides of the same coin of who Abraham was and what we must learn from him.  When do you think we should stand up (even to God) and when do you think we should be obedient humble servants?

Chayei Sarah: Genesis 23.1-25.18

Rebecca and Isaac’s Love

In this week's Torah portion, Chayay Sarah, "The life of Sara", Rebecca meets her intended mate Isaac for the first time.  When she sees him for the first time she covers her face with a veil.  The Rabbis tell us that Rebecca wanted Isaac to love her for who she really was and not for what she looked like.  Indeed Rebecca was known for her kindness and in fact its her great actions that tell Isaac's matchmaker earlier in the portion that Rebecca is the right woman for Isaac.  The Torah then says that they got married and afterward that Isaac loved Rebecca.  For Isaac and Rebecca love was not the reason they got married but rather their love emerged out of really knowing and appreciating each other for who they really were.  What do you really love about people?

Chayei Sara 2

Conversation’s of our Ancestor’s Servants

In this week's Torah portion, Chayeh Sara, Sara dies and then Abraham wishes to find a wife for Isaac who is 37 years old at the time.   (He signs Isaac up for J-Date but since he is the only Jew alive at the time no one else is registered on the web site.)  Abraham then appoints Eliezer his servant to find a wife for Isaac and makes him swear that he will go to Abraham and Sara's relatives to find a wife for Yitzchak and not to the people of Cannan.   The Torah then describes in great detail the trip Eliezer takes and how he finds Rebecca, namely by making a deal with G-d that whom ever he meets at the well and offers him water and water for his camels, she will be the wife for Isaac.   Rebecca meets Eliezer at the well and offers just that, then Eliezer gives her rings and goes to meet her family where he retells the whole story and the Torah records his words for us.

Rash"i is bothered by the long detailed depiction of Eliezer's trip and then the almost verbatim repetition of it in the Torah when Eliezer tells it to Rebecca's family.   Rash"i's explanation is that, quoting the words of the Midrash, we see from here that, “The everyday conversations of the servants of our ancestors were more dear to G-d than the Torah of their progeny,” for we see that latter in the Torah, when the mitzvot are given, they are given in much less detail than the story of Eliezer finding a wife for Yitzchak.

How do you understand this notion that the everyday conversation of our ancestors and even their servants is dearer to G-d than the details of law latter in the Torah?   How do you see the function of the first 2 books of the Torah which are mostly narrative, as contrasted with the last 3 books which contain a great deal of law?   What does this say about the purpose or purposes of the Torah in general?   Discuss amongst yourselves.....and have a Shabbat Shalom.

Toldot: Genesis 25.19-28.9

You Dig?

In this weeks Torah portion, Toldot, the Torah tells us that, "Isaac re-dug the wells his father Abraham had dug, for the Philisteins had stopped them up.  Isaac renamed the wells just as his father Abrahm had."    If the Torah carefully picks and chooses what it tells us about our ancestors, why bother to tell us that they dug wells?  What are we meant to learn from this? 

The word for "well" in Hebrew is "Ba'er" which can also mean "to explain" or "to bring meaning to".  The Sefat Emet tells that our ancestors dug wells for water but that the Torah also means to tell us that they "dug into" the world to explain it to us in a unique way, to illuminate its spirituality which is often hidden.  This is the legacy our ancestors started and the gift they each gave to us in their own particular way through their "digging".  How do you dig the world to uncover its depth and spiritual meaning?

Toldot: Humility

In this weeks parsha Rebecca feels the children in her womb 'running about'.  The Torah says that she declares, "If this is how it is, why should I exist." and goes to seek ask G-d about it.  From her existential declaration and her trip to seek help from G-d instead of a doctor we realize that she is aware that the movement within her womb is perplexing in a very big way.  Indeed G-d's answer is, "There are 2 nations in your womb...they will struggle over power and in the end the older one will serve the younger one."   Her children, Jacob and Esav it seems, are destined from the womb to be enemies.  

Yet as Jews we believe people have free choice and the door for tishuvah, repentance, is always open.   In fact the Midrash tells us that Jacob and Esav were really supposed to be partners in starting the Jewish people, each being the progenitor of 6 tribes.   Why didn't it work?

The Torah describes Jacob and Esav as opposites, in look-one is hairy and one smooth, in place-one is a person of the field and one of the tent, and in personality-one is a trapper and one a simple man.   In theory they would have made great complementary leaders.   The power of a hunter with the depth of a studious man of the tent.   Why couldn't Esav be Jacob's partner?   Why in the end must Jacob do it alone combining his own voice (the voice of Jacob) with the hands and power of his brother (the hands of Esav)?

The Shem MiShmuel a Chassidic commentary on the Torah says that Esav, like all of us, was not bad in and of himself.  He had great potential.  Very different than Jacob's strengths and potential but none the less his power could have been used in the right way.   The Shem Mishumel says that this is why Isaac wanted to give the blessing to Esav.  Though Esav is dangerous he feels giving him the blessing will impart a certain holiness to Esav and tweak him to use his powers for good.  What Isaac did not realize though says the Shem Mishumel is that Esav was also a baal gavah, a haughty person without humility.  Haughtiness he says is like a black hole.   Some things are so dark that no light, no holiness, can exist in them, in haughtiness and ego all holiness is absorbed and blotted out.   Holiness will not help one who is haughty because the holiness gets used to generate more ego.   The holiness becomes self directed, a source of further self aggrandizement.  This is ultimately Esav's Achilles heal.

This Shabbat let us the humble food of lentil soup as Jacob did and work on our anavah, our humility.

VaYetze: Genesis 28.10-32.3

Is Then G-d in this Place and I did Not Know it?

In this week's Torah portion, Va'yatzey, Jacob is running from his home and from

his brother Esav who wants to kill him.  The Torah tells us regarding the

beginning of his journey: "And he came to the place, and slept there with a

stone under his head.  He dreamed that there was a ladder stretching from

earth to heaven with spiritual messengers going up and down it.  God

appeared to Jacob and said, "I am the God of your fathers, the land you are

laying on I will give to you and your decedents.  Your progeny will  be

like the sand of the ground and will spread out and all the families of the

world will be blessed through you...Jacob woke up and said, is it possible

that this is a Godly place and I did not realize it?  What a place, this

must be the house of God."  The Talmud tells us that this place was Mount

Moriyah the future place of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

Have you ever been in a holy place and not realized it or not felt

it?  When have you felt it?  Why are holy places important?  What do you

think Jacob is teaching us?

Vayetzey 2

Spiritual Wells

This week’s Torah portion is Va'yetzey.  In it Jacob runs away from his brother Esav who is out to kill him on account of Jacob's receiving the blessing of the first born instead of Esav, who was the oldest of the two twins.  For the first time in Jacob's life he leaves his land, his family and his parent's tent.  The portion says, "and Jacob left Be'er Shevah and went to Charan."   The question is asked, why did the Torah waste words telling us that he left Be'er Shevah, being that it is information we already know?

Rash"I’s answers that when a righteous person leaves a place there is a certain blessing and holy aura that leaves also, this is what the sentence is noting by calling attention to Jacob's place of departure.  The Sefat Emet offers a more mystical explanation.  Jacob is leaving the Holy Land for the first time.  Jacob wonders how he will be able to take his spiritual life with him even into a place of exile out side of Israel.  The answer given is that we all do this each week.  We have a day called Shabbat in which we are in a spiritual atmosphere, more aware of the Divine.  Our Shabbat gives us the tools to go into the 6 days of the week, the days of the physical world in which God is hidden and yet find God even there.  Jacob too, leaves a place called Be'er Shevah literally "The well of the seven".  Just as shabbat is the spiritual well that feeds the 7 days of the week, so too Jacob achieved a high spiritual level in Be'er Shevah, in the Holy Land, and could then take that with him and use it to sanctify the place of exile to which he journeyed. 

Vayetzey 3

This week’s Torah portion yayetzey begins, "And Jacob went out from Be'er Shevah to go to Charon, and he bumped into the place and laid there because the sun was setting and he took from the stones of the place and placed them under his head and slept in that place." 

What is "The Place" that Jacob came suddenly upon?  According to the commentaries, it was indeed "the place," Mount Morayah in Jerusalem, the place where Yitchak is offered and the place that all the Jews will ultimately gather.   Indeed, after Jacob's dream he says "This must be the house of G-d and the gate of heaven." 

Jacob then dreams of a ladder ascending from the earth to the heavens with angels going down and then up the ladder.  Rash”i is perplexed by why the angels descend and then ascend, when ostensibly angels come from above first.  He explains that as Jacob leaves the land of Israel the angels from Israel must ascend back to the heavens and new angels, those of outside Israel must descend to accompany him on his continued journey. 

Jacob is at a transitional moment in his life, the dweller of tents is leaving his house for the first time and embarking on a journey that will lead him to produce the Jewish people.  When we read the text describing his dream it seems like a very significant holy dream.  The dream itself indeed seems so ripe with metaphor, such dramatic potential: a ladder to Heaven, angles, the gate of Heaven, G-d appearing at its end.  Rashi's explanation seems less than satisfying.  Why does Jacob even need to know that the angles are switching their guard? 

Perhaps precisely at this moment that Jacob leaves Israel to embark on building the Jewish nation and to enter exile, the uniqueness of the Land is a very important message.  Our generation knows well the trials of exile and the dangers of forgetting our true spiritual home, the Land of Israel.  We live at a time in which life in exile is quite good and life in the holy land is rife with some trials.  When leaving the land, it is important that Jacob see its glory and realize its holiness; that the angels from Israel are not able to be outside Israel; that the Land contains the house of G-d and the gate way to heaven.  On his way to exile he must feel the pangs of loss in leaving the place and the land.

On this, the first Shabbat of Kislev the month of rededication to the temple and the holy space, and on the parsha in which Jacob leaves the land for a life in exile, we must ask ourselves (and I also): What is our relationship to the land?  What does it mean to be in exile at a time in which we have a land to go to?  What does it mean to have holy space?  How can it -Jerusalem and Israel and Mount Morayah- help us connect to the infinite and how are we affected by not being in proximity to it.

Vayetzey 4

Finding the Divine in the Dark

This week’s torah portion, Vayetezey, describes the formative experiences of Jacob, the third of the patriarchs.   He runs from his brother Esav and when the sun sets he bumps into, 'the holy place', Mount Moriah.  There he has a dream of a ladder with angles going up and down and he prays, and names the place 'The House of G-d'.   The Talmud tells us that Jacob is the first person to pray at night, it is he we credit with the night time Arvit prayer.   Indeed it is appropriate that all the life changing events in Jacob’s life, the ladder dream, the exchange of his wives with out his knowledge, and his wrestling match with a man/angel, happen in the dark.  

Jacob we are told is the father of exile.  He spends his life on the run, in the dark, but it is he that is truly the father of our people.   His name becomes Israel, meaning to struggle with G-d and people.   Though we as Jews pray for redemption, most of our history has been spent in exile.   It is in exile that Jacob dreams and latter struggles, and then names these places.  He names them, Beit El-'The House of G-d', and Pineel-'The Face of G-d'.   Perhaps it is from Jacob that we learn not to feel that exile in our national life and darkness in our personal lives is a place of losing hope, but a place of finding the Divine house and encountering the Divine face.

VaYishlach: Genesis 32.4-36.43

Wrestling

In this week's Torah portion, "Va'yishlach", Jacob is traveling with his family away from his father-in-law's house where he has worked as a shepherd for 14 years.  He then does a strange thing.  After sending his family ahead Jacob wanders alone.  As he does, the Torah tells us that, "a man wrestles with him until the dawn".  Jacob's leg is hurt and the man (an angel) tells him he will have a new name-"Israel"-because he has "Struggled with man and with God and made it through."  The experience is so spiritually profound for Jacob that he names the place where it happened "Piney El" which means "The Face of God."  What do you think it means that Jacob, the father of our people, finds God in the midst of a struggle in the middle of the night?  Where do you find God, is it also where you might not expect to?  For humans, is struggle a necessary part of being in touch with the Divine?

VaYeshev: Genesis 37.1-40.23

Seeing the Good

This week’s Torah portion, Va'yeshev, begins by describing the relationship between Joseph and his brothers when Joseph was 17 years old.  The Torah tells us that when Joseph was tending sheep with his brothers "...Joseph brought slander about them to his father.  Israel loved Joseph more of all the brothers....and they (his brothers) were unable to speak with Joseph peacefully..."  Certainly everyone, no matter how righteous, sins at times. But why does the Torah specifically tell us this sin of Joseph’s, that he spoke badly of his brothers to his father?  In addition, how could he, Joseph the Tzadik, the righteous one, be guilty of such a crime?

Some commentaries justify Joseph's actions, proposing that perhaps he saw evil in his brothers and meant to tell their father in order that Jacob would discipline them.  Some also judge the brothers favorably explaining that what Joseph saw was not what was actually happening. Still others (the Seforno) blame Jacob for his bad parenting in favoring Joseph over his other children and thereby causing hated among them.

The Sefat Emet does not apologize for Joseph's, his brother's, or his father's actions.  He says that indeed Joseph was guilty of the sin of slander and that this is the reason he must descend to Egypt.  Latter he will become Joseph the Tzazadik, Joseph the Righteous.  The job of the tzadik, the righteous Jewish leader, says the Sefat Emet, is to take the good deeds of the Jewish people and bring them before G-d, ignoring the people's evil deeds.  Joseph needed to learn this in order to create unity among his people.  This is the lesson he learns in Egypt through the trials and travails, the tests and time in prison he is subject to.  Only after the experience of Egypt is he complete and ready to be Joseph the Tzadik.

Miketz: Genesis 41.1-44.17 

VaYigash: Genesis 44.18-47.27

Self Sacrifice

In the end of last week's Torah portion Joseph's princely goblet was placed by Joseph in Benjamin's grain sack.  Then Joseph asked his officers to capture the brothers and look for the cup.  Finding it in Benjamin's sack Joseph says to his brothers (who do not know his true identity) that they must leave Benjamin in Egypt as Joseph's servant.  Knowing this will kill their father Yehudah offers himself in Benjamin's stead.  Then suddenly, after a 2 parsha long charade, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers.  What is it about Yehudah's willingness to sacrifice himself for Benjamin that now lets Joseph stop hiding himself and finally exclaim, "I am Joseph your brother"?

Yehudah, the natural leader of his brothers and future leader of the Jewish nation, indeed the progenitor of King David, changes the most of any person in the story of Joseph and his brothers.  When Joseph is thrown in a pit and left to die by his brothers Yehudah stands up and says, no, lets not kill him, lets sell him instead.  But at that point, Yehudah, though willing to take a stand for what is right, is yet not yet willing to sacrifice himself for Joseph.  He is not fully able to stand up to his brothers and risk personal injury and alienation, by completely protesting the wrong.  Now though, at the end of the story, he is willing to sacrifice himself for Joseph's brother Benjamin.  Only then is Joseph willing to stop pretending. Now his job is done.

It is very interesting to look back over the last two Torah portions and explore the things that happen to Yehudah, with an eye to seeing how they effect change in him, and what we can learn about becoming people of holy action and leadership in our own lives.
 

Vayigash 2

In these last few Torah portions, coming to a climax in this week’s portion of Va'yigash, the Torah tells us of Joseph's brothers coming to Egypt to buy food and Joseph's difficult treatment of them.  Putting Shimon in jail, telling them to bring Benjamin and then hiding his cup in Benjamin's sack and threatening to keep him in Egypt, eventually bringing them to their knees.
 
Why does Joseph do this?  For revenge?  But Joseph is described several times during the episode as being on the verge of emotional tears, not hardened vindication.  To make the dreams of his brothers and parents bowing down to him come true?  But Joseph better than most knows that G-d is in charge ("G-d will interpret Pharaoh's dreams, not I"). Yet, the Torah does say that when Joseph first saw his brothers he remembered the dreams he had dreamt.   What does this remembering of the dreams mean if not to now make them come true?

I would like to suggest that the answer lies in the first verse of our Torah portion.  Joseph has said that Benjamin must stay.  The brothers are dumb struck, all is lost, they have promised their father they would be responsible for Benjamin and bring him back safely since their father Jacob expressed his trauma in letting Benjamin his only other child from Rachel go after Joseph his other child has been lost and is gone.   Now Judah comes forward and stands up for Benjamin.  With self sacrifice he takes responsibly.   Perhaps this is what the Torah means when it says Joseph remembered the dreams.   Not to make them come true and to make his brothers bow down, but the opposite, to make his brothers stand up for Benjamin, what they did not do for him and instead in reaction to his dreams, sold him away.   They must make up now for not standing up against the brothers when they wanted to throw him in the pit.  Indeed Reuven the first born (would be leader) says not to kill Joseph, but he does not stand up fully for him with self sacrifice.  He does not stand out against the crowd.  Now one of the brothers finally does, Judah.  Not the first born, but, and perhaps resulting from this episode, he will become the first.  The Kingship of the Jewish people will come from him.

Veyechi: Genesis 47.28-50.26

Closed/Open

In this week's torah portion, Vayichi, we are told of the death of Jacob. Strangely, instead of starting after the normal open line break in the Torah scroll that is typically found between portions this portion begins closed, with no space between its beginning and the end of the portion before it.   The Midrash tells us that the closed nature of the written text in the beginning of this portion reflects the closing that is happening in the text's narrative.  Jacob is dying and the hearts of the Jewish people begin to close as the enslavement comes. 

In contrast there is a part of the Torah that when written in the scroll, is formed in the exact opposite manor with lines written so open that they are more space than text.  The Shirah, the song that the Jewish people sing after crossing the Red Sea is written all open, with numerous line breaks in each line of scribal writing.

The Torah is thus to be read on many different levels.  Its punctuation itself reflects the nature and feeling within.  Perhaps part of the lesson is that Torah must be not only be read but felt.  One must enter into the Torah as it is read.  It is meant as a book of instruction and transformation rather than one of history.  May we merit this Shabbat to enter into the Torah as it enters into us, to become one with its opposites. To embody and learn from both the closedness of exile and openness of redemption that the Torah depicts.  

Shmot: Exo. 1.1-6.1

In this week's Parsha, Shemot, the Jewish people go down to Egypt and though they are successful and have land there, they are soon enslaved by Pharaoh.  210 years go by and Moses, a Jewish boy adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh emerges from the palace.   He sees an Egyptian beating a Jewish slave, knows instinctively that the Jewish slaves are his brothers and kills the Egyptian task master.   He then sees two Jewish people arguing and trys to break up their fight.  The ask him if he is going to kill them as he did the Egyptian, and Moshe realizes that what he did has become known and runs away to Midyon.  There he meets his wife, sees the burning bush and is asked by G-d to save the Jewish people.  

In general the Torah does not tell us much about people.  It is not a book of history but rather a book of instruction.  The Torah carefully chooses what to tell us.   We know a few hours of Abraham's life and indeed, though Moshe will be such an important figure in Jewish history we know only two stories about him before he becomes the Jewish leader at 80 years old.   Why are these two stories the ones the Torah chooses to tell us?   What insight do they give us about Moshe?  

The answer is obvious i think. The Torah wants to teach us something about Jewish leadership.  Moshe is not someone motivated by honor or position, indeed he is most humble and does not want to be the leader.  What does motivate him?   Justice and empathy.  All we know about Moshe until he is 80 is that when he sees an Egyptian taskmaster beating a slave, even though Moshe is the prince of Egypt he immediately steps in. Not only that but among his own people too, when there is a fight he jumps in to make peace.   The torah wants us to know that these are the qualities of a good leader.
May we merit to learn from Moshe this Shabbat and to surly pursue justice and peace!

Shemot 2

This week we will begin a new book of the Torah, Shemot (Names), the book of Exodus.      Jacob and his children and grandchildren have been living in Egypt for quite a few years when a new Pharaoh becomes king of Egypt.  He fears that the Jewish people, who have become numerous, will join with a potential enemy of Egypt and wage war against Egypt.   The Jews are apparently of Egypt but clearly not “Egyptian” and are suspected of being a potential fifth column.  

But why does the torah need to list the names of the people who go down to Egypt?  We already know all the names of Jacob’s children.  Aviva Zornberg points out that the Torah describes the Jewish people here as being so fruitful and multiplying so much they we were like a “swarm,” “va’yishritzu”.   The upside of a ‘swarm’ she says is that there is a great many; the downside though is a kind of insect like ubiquity, a namelessness.   Things that swarm are many in number but few in individual identities and names.  

The Midrash says that the Jewish people were almost completely assimilated in Egypt.   To be redeemed the Jewish people must find their uniquely Jewish voice.  This happens when they realize they are individuals, not just a swarm of people.   They then cry out to G-d and G-d hears their voice, and thus the process of redemption, the redemption of individuals that will form a nation, the redemption of a collective and potentially holy Jewish voice, begins.  

This Shabbat of the beginning of the redemption of Jewish voice and language may we merit to find our own uniquely Jewish and holy voices. 

Va'era: Exo. 6.2-9.35

This weeks Torah portion, Vayerah, contains the first 7 of the plagues brought upon the Egyptians. In the Torah's introduction to the seventh  plague ,hail, G-d tells Moses, stretch you hand out on top of the heavens and bring hail.  Rash”i is bothered by this strange phrase and quotes the Midrash which says that in order to bring the plague of hail God lifted Moshe up above the heavens.   This Midrash though, while making sense of the words in the verse itself, does not clarify the reasons for Moses' being raised above the heavens or what this really means.   Furthermore why is the Midrash inclined to say this regarding the plague of hail and no other plague, and what does it teach us?

The Shem Mishmuel, the Sochetchover Rebbe points out that the plague of hail is unique.  All of the other plagues were things that were part of the natural world.  Though water does not turn into blood, blood is something that we often see and are familiar with in the physical world.  The torah says that the hail (frozen water) had fire burning within it, a physical contradiction that can not survive in the world we know.  Fire and water usually annihilate each other, and are often seen as symbolic opposites.  This plague, for its existence, had to draw on things higher than the world we know. 

Indeed the miracles of Egypt wrought by Moshe bring up the question of how we as rationale Jews see miracles in general.  Maimonides has an interesting take on miracles and those of Egypt in particular.  in the Guide to the Perplexed, his book on philosophy, he approaches the tension between belief in miracles and believing the laws of science to be immutable as follows, “Although the rod was turned into a serpent and water into blood with out the existence of any natural cause that could effect these changes, the changes were not permanent and did not become a physical property.  Our sages have said strange things in the Midrash regarding miracles, that they are to some extent also natural, that when G-d created the universe with its physical properties, G-d made it part of these properties that they should produce certain miracles at certain times, the Prophets only said when they would take place, but the thing itself was effected according to the fixed laws of nature..."

May we merit much more time to study together such deep questions as these in our tradition.

Bo: Exo. 10.1-13.16

In this weeks Torah portion, Bo, the Jewish people are commanded their first mitzvah as a nation.  In order to leave Egypt in the morning, the previous night all the Jews had to bring a Passover offering.  According to the Medrash the Jews were almost completely assimilated into Egyptian culture, and so God wanted the Jews to slaughter and eat a lamb, one of the main Egyptian gods to show their willingness to separate from Egypt.  It specifically had to be barbecued, so that their oppressors could smell what they were doing, forcing the Jewish people to be public about their rebellion. But, If God is trying to separate the Jews from their Egyptian idol worship, isnt telling them to take the god they have been worshiping for 250 years into their houses for a religious ceremony a dangerous proposition? Why not just take them out quickly instead of giving them one last night eating their favorite god?

Perhaps part of the point of this mitzvah is to teach the Jewish people not to reject their past but to learn how to use it in a holy way.  Had God just taken them out, torn them from their enslavement and culture, the process would have been simpler but we would have missed one of Judaisms main messages, that we reject nothing in this world, but have guidelines on how to utilize such things for holiness. 

Slaves probably never eat in an organized communal fashion; they eat on the go when they have food (much like 21^st century Americans).  Now the Jews had to create pre-set communities in which to eat the lamb.  It had to all be eaten; none saved for a future time in which there might be no food, complete trust in Hashem was required.  They could not break the bones.  This is a meal of transition, eaten in hasty leaving, yet respect for it matters.  To a slave this is a new notion.  This lamb is for free people, not just a food, but conscious respectful communal ritual.

Bo 2

Bo: Lambasting the Egyptian God

In this week’s Torah portion the Jewish people are commanded their first mitzvah as a nation.  In order to leave Egypt in the morning, the previous night all the Jews had to bring a Passover offering.  According to the Medrash the Jews were almost completely assimilated into Egyptian culture, and so God wanted the Jews to slaughter and eat a lamb, one of the main Egyptian gods to show their willingness to separate from Egypt.  It specifically had to be barbequed, so that their oppressors could smell what they were doing, forcing the Jewish people to be public about their rebellion.

Exodus Chapter 12

3. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house;

4. And if the household is too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the souls; according to every person’s eating shall you make your count for the lamb.

5. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year; you shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats;

6. And you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

7. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, in which they shall eat it.

8. And they shall eat the meat in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

9. Eat it not raw, nor boil with water, but roast it with fire; its head with its legs, and with its inner parts.

10. And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire.

11. And thus shall you eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

Your Torah navigator:

1. If God is trying to separate the Jews from their Egyptian idol worship, isn’t telling them to take the god they have been worshiping for 250 years into their houses for a religious ceremony a dangerous proposition? Why not just take them out quickly instead of giving them one last night eating their favorite god?

2. Why all the rules?  What would be wrong with eating it alone, leaving some over till the next day (mmmm…cold lamb sandwiches), or breaking one of the bones? 

3. If you were choosing a mitzvah to give the Jewish people to would prepare them for their new freedom what would it be?

A word:

Perhaps part of the point of this mitzvah is to teach the Jewish people not to reject their past but to learn how to use it in a holy way.  Had God just taken them out, torn them from their enslavement and culture, the process would have been simpler but we would have missed one of Judaism’s main messages, that we reject nothing in this world, but have guidelines on how to utilize such things for holiness. 

Slaves probably never eat in an organized communal fashion; they eat on the go when they have food (much like 21^st century Americans).  Now the Jews had to create pre-set communities in which to eat the lamb.  It had to all be eaten; none saved for a future time in which there might be no food, complete trust in Hashem was required.  They could not break the bones.  This is a meal of transition, eaten in hasty leaving, yet respect for it matters.  To a slave this is a new notion.  This lamb is for free people, not just a food, but conscious respectful communal ritual.

 Beshalach: Exo. 13.17-17.16 -shirah

This Shabbat has a special name.  Shabbat Shirah, the Shabbat of song.  In this week's Torah portion we read of the first song the Jewish people sing as a nation, the first communal prayer of thanks to G-d.  When the Jews cross the sea to dry land and are saved from the pursuing Egyptians they spontaneously sing out to G-d in thanks. 

Even though the Jewish people have been in slavery for 210 years, almost completely assimilated into Egyptian society and do not know the G-d of their ancestors, they are  in the moment inspired to cry out to Hashem in thanks.  Rashi expresses it this way, "Then Moshe sang: when he saw the miracles it moved his heart to sing..."  Moshe then leads them in song and teaches them how to channel this inspiration for spiritual connection to the Holy One.  Immediately afterward Miriam his sister takes a tambourine in her hands and the women go out after her with instruments, and Miriam sings a similar song. 

Let's anyalize this first formal prayer by our people to gain some insight into the nature of praying.  This first prayer by our people is the most basic most visceral prayer.  It is spontaneous, sang in response to G-d's presence and saving.  It is not structured but an eruption of song.  Singing is perhaps the most basic from of Jewish prayer.  The men and women pray separately.  It seems that instruments are particularly the domain of the women.  Indeed,  after hundreds of years in slavery the Jewish women have musical instruments that they bought on the road along with their matza.  The parsha moves us to ask ourselves what is lacking from our own prayers.  How we can learn from our ancestors and lay claim to moments of inspiration that have the potential to move us close to Hashem, as they did.  

Indeed the Talmud in Berachot paints a picture of prayer that occurs all day long.  When one enters a city that might be dangerous says the Talmud pray that God should protect you, on the way out pray in thanks, if you saw a shooting star, a mountain or an ocean there is a beracha to say.  Beyond the structured prayer services 3 times a day we have many blessings and prayers, available all the time indeed constantly required that help us to channel the moments of inspiration in our lives toward G-d.

Bishalach 2

In this week's Torah portion Be'shalach the Jewish people cross the Red Sea and their captors, the Egyptian army, is drowned in it.  The Jews then pray to G-d as a nation for the first time.    The Midrash tells of 4 groups when the Jewish People reach the sea.  One wanted to go back to Egypt, one wanted to jump in the sea, one wanted to make war with the Egyptians and one began to pray.  According to the Midrash Moses addresses each group with different words in the verse and reassures them that G-d will help them through this.  In the text though G-d says to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me, speak to the children of Israel and tell them to move ahead..."  G-d's message is, don't pray now, don't rely on me to save you, you need to move ahead.  The Talmud tells us that one man, Nachshon the son of Aminadav jumped into the water as the people were arguing about what to do.  Only then did the water split.  He was from the tribe of Judah, and for his act the Midrash says the tribe of Judah became the line of royalty.   Moshe does not become the King, his characteristic is to pray to G-d, to reassure the people, he is the great Shepard.  The King though, the leader par-excellence must act.

Yitro: Exo. 18.1-20.23

In this week's Torah Portion, the Jewish people receive the Torah at Mount

Sinai.  Strangely when they approach the mountain God says to Moses, make a

boundary around the mountain and keep the people behind it.  The Medrash

comments that a boundary was needed because in the people's spiritual

fervor they would just run headlong into the mountain in a quest to see

God.  But then at the end of the experience we are told the people shook

with awe and ran away.  So what is it, are we runing headlong into the

Divine or are we scared by it into running away?  Perhaps this is deep

contradiction is part of the very nature of powerful spiritual

experience.  According to the commentaries we humans are both drawn in

passion to God and yet at the same time fear the annihilation of ourselves,

the loss of our previous identities.  How are you both drawn to God and

also recoil from it?  May we all merit to receive the Torah this week anew.

Yitro 2

In this week's Torah Portion, Yitro, the Jewish people stand at Mount Sinai and receive the Aseret Hadibrot, the 10 commandments.  Though these 10 are no more important than any other mitzvot in the torah they are considered by many to be a kind of headline or categorical  index for all the mitzvot.  It is interesting that exactly 5 are commandments between us and G-d and 5 are mitzvot between people.  There is a great lesson to be learned from this.  Though Mount Siani is a moment of Divine revelation and deep spiritual awakening, the product of it is not a purely religious one but also a civil one.  Judaism is not a religion, not only a system to help us connect to G-d but one that is just as concerned about civil laws and conduct between people.  In fact a quarter of the Shulchan Aruch, the classic code of Jewish law is bushiness law, and includes other wide sections which deal with torts and damages.   Though these are not the usual areas religion deals with , Judaism is completely encompassing; not a typical religion but a system for living a moral, spiritual and joyous life. 

Mishpatim: Exo. 21.1-24.18

This week's Torah portion follows immediately after the giving of the Ten commandments at Mount Sinai.  Now God tells Moses the rest of the Torah's laws the Jews must know.  The first of those related are laws pertaining to servants.  If one has a servant they must be treated well and after 6 years they must be set free.  If the servant refuses to go free their ear is pierced next to the door post of the house (the mizuzah).  The commentaries tell us that the servant's ear is pierced because he did not listed to the message of the Torah which is, "the Jews are to be servants of the Infinite One, and not servants of people."  I never understood why a servant would not want their freedom until I spent a year in India as the Rabbi of Bombay.  There almost everyone has servants.  I knew a Jewish family that had a servant, and the servant and his family had been living with the master's family for generations.  The servant's father had even been a servant in the master's father's house a generation before.  The servant's family was so integrated into masters family that though the servant's family was Hindu and the master's Jewish the servant's kids knew how to sing all the Shabbat songs and prayers.  They were so close that if the master had died or moved away the servant and his family would have been lost.
Why do you think this mitzvah of the necessity of freedom is the first one given after the Ten Commandments?

Mishpatim 2

This week's parsha, Mishpatim, is the first Torah portion after the Jews have stood at Mount Sinai and consists of many laws, almost all of them civil and societal laws.  The first of these are the time limitations on servitude.  If one has a Jewish servant they must be freed after 6 years and if they refuse to go free you must bring them to your door post and pierce their ear.  Rash"i tells us that it is the ear that is pierced because this servant did not listen to that which G-d implied at Mount Sinai, that we are His servants and not servants of human beings, and this person wants to take a human master.  The process is done at the door post because it was the door post that the Jews put blood on when they left Egypt, rebelling against their human captors to enter into Divine service.   The Jewish people are only 50 days from slavery.  The first thing they must know is that to truly serve G-d, though it may be scary, requires an amount of personal freedom, responsibility and independence.  Only then can they begin to build a society based on Torah.  

Trumah: Exo. 25.1-27.19

In this week's torah portion Terumah we are told about the building of the first Temple in the desert.  God tells Moses to tell the Jewish people, "make a sanctuary for me and I with dwell among (in) them.  The commentaries ask, "shouldn't it say, make for me a sanctuary and I will dwell in it?  What does 'I will dwell in them mean'?  The Torah here is trying to teach us a deep concept.  We do not build holy spaces for God to dwell in, God in infinite.  Holy spaces act as an inspirational catalyst for us to allow God to well within each of us, not God forbid, to make believe God is confined in a certain place.  What holy spaces help you to facilitate God's dwelling within you?  How can you make more of them?

Trumah 2

 This week's Torah portion, Trumah, contains the first words told to us after the narrative describes Moses' ascension to Mount Sinai. Most of the portion is a long description of the building of the tabernacle, a traveling temple that the Jews had in the desert.

The portion begins as follows: "And God said to Moshe saying, 'tell the children of Israel; take gifts to me from each person according to their desire...and this you will take: gold, silver, bronze, purple wool...and oil for the menorah...And you will make a sanctuary for me and I will dwell among them. All I have shown you of the look of the mishkan (tabernacle) and its vessels shall you make...'" (Exodus 25:1-9)

The rest of this week's portion and all of next week's go on to describe in detail how to construct the tabernacle.

Read the following questions and discuss them. Then, read the texts below and discuss the questions again:

1. Why do you think the laws of the tabernacle are given to Moses first?

2. If we believe God is everywhere, infinite, and non-physical, why does the Torah ask us to build a physical space for God's dwelling?

3. If God just brought the Jews out of Egypt and split the Red Sea, then why does God need the Jewish people to provide the materials and labor to build the mishkan (tabernacle)? Why wouldn't God do it Himself?

Some Texts:

Rabbi Tarfon said, "How great is work, for even God (who is everywhere) will not bring the divine presence to rest on the Jewish people until they have done work. As the Torah says, '[They must] make for me a tabernacle and [then] I will dwell among them.'" -Avot D'rabbi Nason

"Change was very difficult for the Jewish people. Therefore, God gave them animal sacrifices because that is the type of service they were used to, not because it was the best type. God wanted to turn their sacrificial service of idols to the service of the One God." -Maimonides--Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon of Fez (formerly of Cordoba), 11th century (Guide to the Perplexed 3:32)

The Talmud says that for us today prayer has replaced the sacrifices. Doing the work of approaching God, exercising the ability of the human to reach beyond and encounter face to face the brute existence of the Most High, is what both sacrifice and prayer are really all about. This is service for no ulterior purpose than encountering the Divine one on One, and standing in relationship with God.

If we experience Being through relationship, as Martin Buber said we do, then the primacy of the experience of approaching, standing before, and interacting with the Divine, may be one of the most powerful and necessary things we can do as humans and Jews.

A famous Chassidic Rabbi once asked, "why does the Torah say, 'Build a sanctuary for me and I will dwell in them (plural)?' Wouldn't it be more correct to say, 'build a sanctuary and I will dwell in it (singular)'?

The answer teaches us that God really desires a sanctuary in each one of us.

In the beginning of this week’s Torah Portion, Terumah, Moses has just ascended Mount Sinai after the saying of the aseret hadibrot, Ten Commandments, and G-d now commands Moses to tell the Jewish People to collect funds for the building of the Mishkan, (Tabernacle), a moving Temple the Jewish people traveled with in the desert.  This Torah portion and several subsequent to it then continue to describe the details of the Mishkan’s construction.  Why do the commandments for building a tabernacle follow so soon on the heels of the revelation at Mount Sinai?  Indeed, why do the Jewish people, a nation that our Rabbis say saw G-d face to face at the Red Sea and at Mount Sinai, require a Tabernacle at all for relating to the Divine?  Furthermore isn’t it a dangerous proposition for a people so soon redeemed from a land of idolaters, to have a concrete place and gold vessels for worshiping an infinite G-d?

Rash”i, the great medieval French Torah commentator was perplexed by the same questions.  He answers that the Torah here is in the wrong chronological order.  In reality, says Rash”i, the Tabernacle was only given to the Jews after they had worshipped the golden calf and G-d realized their need for a more concrete form of worship.  Maimonides in his book, The Guide to the Perplexed, says a similar thing, that prayer and personal interaction are a higher form of connection with G-d than Temple sacrifices and communal service, but that the Jews, a nation 50 days from slavery, could not relate to things so abstract.

The Midrash though, sees the Mishkan in a more positive light.  The Midrash says that Moses was quite perplexed when G-d gave the commandments for the building of the Tabernacle and said, “Will You who even the whole universe can not contain, constrict Yourself in the Mishkan?”

The Midrash, Yalkut Shimoni, offers the following parable as G-d’s answer to Moses.  There was a king who had a young daughter.  When she was a little girl she would run to the king in the market place and he would pick her up, he was always available to play with her and talk to her.   When she grew up the king said, “It is not fitting for us to talk in the market place; I will make a special personal room for us to talk in.”  

So it is with Israel, says G-d.  When she was young I interacted with her everywhere face to face; at the Sea, in the Exodus and at Mount Sinai.  But now that she has grown up, received the Torah and become a complete nation, it is not polite (or profound enough) for me to talk to her in public like a child, rather let her make for me a Sanctuary and I will dwell among them.  

Do we have a Mishkan due to our lack of ability to interact intimately and maturely with G-d or because we have an even greater ability to do so?  Though growing up often changes the parent-child relationship into one that at first may seem less intimate, the potential exists, if we can mature enough, to have a relationship that is ever so much more deep and complex.  This Shabbat may we each personally become spiritually mature enough to have an even more intimate, deep and complex relationship with our G-d.

Tetzaveh: Exo. 27.20-30.10

In the beginning of this weeks Torah portion God tells Moses to command the Jewish People to take pure olive oil for the menorah which was to be lit each day in the Temple.  This is the first of the Temple services described.  The following Medrash (Tanchumah 5) gives some explanation for the menorahs so central and precedent place in the daily Temple service.

How beautiful are you my beloved, your eyes are like doves (Song of Songs1:15).  Why are the Jewish People compared to a dove in this verse?  When Noah sent the raven out of the Ark to check if the waters had receded the raven flew away on its own, but afterward when he sent the dove it came back with an olive twig in its mouth showing that the world was habitable again.  Just as the dove brought light to the world, so you, the Jewish People who are compared to a dove, shall bring pure oil and light a lamp before God, as it says, command the people and tell them to bring oilto bring up a constant flame.

How did the dove bring light to the world?
Is lighting the menorah similar to the doves light?
What kind of light should the menorah remind us to bring to the world?
As a Jew how can you bring more of this light in your life and world?

For the Jews in the desert after they dedicate the Temple the lighting of the menorah is the first service done (see Numbers) and for the Macabies latter in history when they rededicate the Temple the menorah is first.  Somehow the lighting of the menorah sets the stage for all other Temple services.  The Talmud points out in fact that the windows in the Temple were smaller on the inside and larger on the outside as if the spiritual light of the Temple was meant to radiate to the outside world.  The dove comes from the Ark (a special place) and returns to it and in the process brings light to the outside world, so to should we come from a holy place and return back to holiness, but in the interim bring light to a world that so needs that light.  This is what the menorah in the Temple (and in our houses on Chanukah) should remind us of.  We are like doves leaving the ark, bringing light to the world. 

Titzaveh 2

In this week's Torah portion, Tetzaveh, Moses is told to command the Jewish

people to take pure olive oil to light the menorah in the Temple.  The

menorah was lit each day as one of the first services in the temple in

Jerusalem.  The description of the actual fashioning of the gold menorah was

already described in last week's Torah portion among descriptions of so many

of the Temple's vessels such as the Ark and Table.  Following those

descriptions we have this week's command to light the menorah every day

followed by a lengthy description of the vestments of the kohen (high

priest).

Why does the Torah spend a portion relating the Temple's furniture and

vessels and another Torah portion describing what the kohen wore but between

them a few lines about the lighting of the menorah connecting the two

portions?  Indeed, the other many Temple services are not described here,

only the lighting of the menorah.  How to sacrifice animals and bring

incense is saved for latter books of the Torah, so why the stress here,

between the section of the Temple's vessels and the kohen's vestments, on

how to light the menorah? Furthermore, why use the menorah's lighting as a

transition between the Temple's vessels and the clothes of the High Priest?

Why not just put them together?

Perhaps the Torah does not want only to describe the Temple's vessels and

the clothes worn to perform its services without touching on the humanness

that must inhabit those vestments and use those vessels.  So we are told

about the menorah's lighting, something which can not be done without the

person of the kohen.  Fire can exist on its own, oil can exist on its own,

but bringing the two together takes a kohen. 

Why then use the menorah's lighting and not another temple service as a

description of the kohen's presence and necessity?  I would like to suggest

that the lighting of the menorah is THE Temple service par-excellence.

Indeed, in Numbers 8:1, after the Temple is built and dedicated the first

thing done is the lighting of the menorah before any daily sacrifices.  We

know also that the  Macabees, after rededicating the temple, look first for

pure oil for the menorah's lighting.

Why is the menorah so central?  Why is the essential role of the kohen

expressed in terms of the menorah's lighting?  Perhaps the answer lies in

the following medrash.  "The song of songs (which according to the Talmud

describes the relationship of God to His people) says: "behold how

beautiful, your eyes are like doves."  Why are the Jewish people compared to

a dove?  Just as when Noah sent the Raven it ran away but the dove returned

to the Ark with an olive branch in its mouth to bring light to the world, so

too says God my people shall bring light to the world when they light the

Menorah before Me with olive oil.

According to this Medrash the Menorah is the symbolic expression of the

Jewish mandate to bring light to the world.  The goal of our spiritual

service is not to, God forbid, satiate God with the death of animals, but to

bring light through our many services to a dark world where the Almighty is

hidden.  And so it is precisely the Menorah which sets the tone for our

Temple service and our lives as Jews.

Tizaveh 3

In the beginning of this weeks Torah portion God tells Moses to command the Jewish People to take pure olive oil for the menorah which was to be lit each day in the Temple.  This is the first of the Temple services described.  The following Medrash (Tanchumah 5) gives some explanation for the menorahs so central and precedent place in the daily Temple service.    How beautiful are you my beloved, your eyes are like doves (Song of Songs1:15).  Why are the Jewish People compared to a dove in this verse?  When Noah sent the raven out of the Ark to check if the waters had receded the raven flew away on its own, but afterward when he sent the dove it came back with an olive twig in its mouth showing that the world was habitable again.  Just as the dove brought light to the world, so you, the Jewish People who are compared to a dove, shall bring pure oil and light a lamp before God, as it says, command the people and tell them to bring oilto bring up a constant flame.  What kind of light should the menorah remind us to bring to the world. 

Ki Tisah: Exo. 30.11-34.35

In this week's Torah portion Moses is late descending Mount Sinai and the Jewish people, anxious without their new leader, make a golden calf to take his place.  Its funny really, they are so attached to Moses that they can't live with out him for even a few hours. Yet they find it so easy to replace him.  Perhaps the experience of the golden calf is not just about worshiping an idol but about where the people are at, and who they are right then.  Maimonides says that God did not really want animal sacrifices in the Temple to be the way for the Jews to serve him, but after they made the golden calf and announced "this is your G-d oh Israel who brought you out of Egypt," He realized that they were still like children, who could not encounter God on the mature level of prayer. They were still a people with deeply ingrained slave mentalities.  Who, like infants, could not go alone for more than a moment without their leader.  Ultimately, it takes 40 years for the Jewish people to mature into their personal spiritual relationship with God. 
How are you spiritually immature? How would you like to grow over the next 40 years?

Ki Tisah 2

In this week’s Torah portion, just 40 days after receiving the Divine Revelation at Mount Sinai, the Jewish people become anxious that Moses their leader will not return from on top of the mountain and they make for themselves a golden calf.   In the midst of their sensual, noisy, Dionysian worship of the calf they exclaim, “This is your God of Israel who took you out of the Land of Egypt.”  How could a people who had experienced the splitting of the sea and the giving of the Ten Commandments by God at Mount Sinai commit such a grave act of treason against their benevolent redemptive God? 

According to Rabbi Shlomo Isaac (Rash”i) the Jewish people are not so much rebelling against God as reacting primarily to Moses’ absence, like children with out guidance feeling forsaken by their parent.   According to Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (Ramb”n) they were indeed rebelling against God, not because they did not believe God had wroth miracles for them but because spiritually all they could relate to at this point was a concrete God to guide them on their journey, not an infinite One.

I would like to suggest an additional approach.  Though some commentaries argue that these Torah portions are not in proper chronological order, in the Torah as it is written the story of the golden calf proceeds directly after the laws of the Tabernacle and the Shabbat.   Both the tabernacle and Shabbat are places of kidusha, of holiness, in space and in time respectively, and both the holiness of the tabernacle and the holiness of the Sabbath are achieved through limitation and boundary. 

This Jewish people, only 90 days redeemed out of 200 years of slavery, do not know how to see the depth, and indeed the freedom, in limitation.   The Jewish people at this point are without focus and can not understand, as the existentialists often write, that only in limitation can their be true freedom.   Even their worship is unbounded, they want a God they can put their hands on and worship with abandon.

The midrash tells us that the tikun, the fixing of the sin of the golden calf, is that the Jews give gold of their own free will and from their hearts to build the Tabernacle and they give more than enough.  God does not limit their giving as before to only a half coin, but lets them give with abandon.   Their passion is curbed from selfishness into holiness, from their unbridled desire emerging an unbridled giving, to an other, to the community.  

According to the Zohar (I:61a), strangely one thing that emerges out of the sin of the golden calf is the ability to procreate.  Just as in the case of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, had they not sinned they would not have had children, so too had the Jews not sinned with the golden calf they would not have had any children.   God now gives them the opportunity for true expansion, holy God-like creativity through their passion and thus helps the Jews where they are at to take what was sinful and transform it into holiness.

This Shabbat may we learn how to take our own idols and desires and transform them into building a tabernacle for God.

Vayakhel: Exo. 35.1-38.20

Jewish tradition believes that in the bible no word is extra and no pattern or juxtaposition designed with out reason.  So we must ask ourselves, why does the Torah relate in this portion, one after another, these three seemingly unrelated themes: the coming together of all the Jewish people, the Shabbat, and the building of the tabernacle (the traveling temple the Jews used in the desert on their way from Egypt to Israel).

Rabbi Mordachi Yosef of Ezbietz, suggests the following answer.  In the building of the tabernacle all the Jewish people became joined together in their hearts, without any one feeling greater than their neighbor.[  feelings of haughtiness toward each other.  ]   Though at first each person who came forward with a skill, did their part as an artisan and said, wow, this is really a wonderful piece of artisanship; afterward, when they stepped back and saw how each person’s work and art fit together with every other one to form one structure fitting together so well, as if one person had made the whole tabernacle, and that they were all so interdependent on each other, each realized that it was not their own skill alone but the guidance of the Divine One, that had brought together the Tabernacle.  They saw in the way that it all fit together that its greatness was not in each individual part they had made of their own skill but in the harmony of the whole as if made by one person, they understood that their creativity did not come from themselves but from the Divine through the hand of each of them.  How could they feel that their individual work was so great?  How could they feel that familiar ego of the artist when they had all taped into the same overarching and unifying Divine consciousness.

There for the Torah tell us of the Shabbat just before the artistry of the tabernacle (mishkan in Hebrew which means dwelling, for it was the place of the dwelling of the Divine), because the binding together, the joining of consciousness, comes from the concept of the Shabbat.  For all mitzvot that are done, not for one’s own ego, but for their own sake, have at their core the concept of the Sabbath.  The Godliness was only able to dwell in the tabernacle if all the pieces and all the individuals came together as one to form it, and because they realized how necessary each person was within this Divine plan none felt greater than their neighbor.  So Moses calls all the people together as one person with one heart, to be on the level of Shabbat, with out personal ego, and to come together as one and form the tabernacle, a place in the physical world of Divine awareness.

Rabbi Mordichi Yosef is saying that only when we act for the sake of a greater good, for God and for the sake of good itself, can there be a coming together in oneness, for if we act out of any other reason, then we are motivated by our own ego.