Parshat Lech Lecha

I think that most of us take it for granted that we have free will, without ever thinking about what free will really means.  There are so many factors that influence our thinking and decision making that its hard to identify where, exactly, we exercise our total free will.  We are influenced by our families, friends, upbringing, schooling, work, society, culture, commercials, celebrities, etc. When you consider all of the factors that influence us, it seems pretty clear that to make a true act of free will would require a great deal of exertion on our part.  Without proper introspection in order to identify the factors that influencing the way we act and make decisions, then we just float through life without truly acting out of free will.

In this week's Parsha, God tells Avraham that he needs to remove himself from all the things that influence him, for his own sake.  The verse says, "Go for yourself, from your land, from your birthplace, from your father's house..." If we dissect the parts of this verse we will learn an important lesson about free will.  God didn't have to spell out all the places from where Avraham was supposed to leave, the verse could have just said, "go to where I'm going to show you."  By adding those superfluous words, it is indicating to us that there is a lesson to be learned.  The three places mentioned, your land, your birthplace, your father's house, are all places with a great deal of influence upon a person's identity.  People often identify with their country, their community, and their father/parent's home.  Having these identities are not inherently bad, but it's sometimes difficult to identify where the person ends and where the identity based on that external factor begins.

God is telling Avraham, that sometimes, in order to have a spiritual awakening we have to remove ourselves from the influence of external factors.  That is the nature of the words in the verse saying, "go for yourself."  The statement for yourself is also unnecessary.  But when we consider all the seemingly unnecessary parts of the verse, the idea emerges that acting in one's own best interest with true free will sometimes requires a reconstruction of our own identity separate from external influences.  Once we know where we stand on certain issues at our core, we can begin to think with our own free will, then we can go back and consider the potential impact our decisions will have for good or bad on our family, communities and larger society.

The beginning of the Parsha deals with a lesson to Avraham about removing oneself from external influences in order to make decisions based on our own free will.  If that were the end of the story, then we would be forced to conclude that the ideal way of life, would be to live in a cave away from all of society's influences and only think about ourselves.  But thankfully that is not the end of the story.  Avraham is the model of consideration for others and the champion of social justice in the ancient world.  He does go back to his family and homeland in order to find a spouse for his son.  The lesson is that in order to fully engage in the world as an individual acting on our own free will, it is necessary that we identify who we are and what we believe in, and then re-insert that image back in to society.

Shabbat Shalom!

Parshat Ki Tavo

The beginning of this week's Parsha describes the mitzvah of bikkurim, the commandment to bring your first fruits to the Temple in Jerusalem.  This commandment was carried out with a lot of fanfare, and effort.  It is hard to explain why it was so important for people to travel all the way to Jerusalem just to bring the first fruits that grew on their land.  It seems like a somewhat trivial detail, yet there is a whole ritual that revolved around this practice.  The Mishna in the third chapter of bikkurim describes how the people and local leaders would gather around like at a parade when a person bringing their fruits to the Temple would travel through their town.
Many commentators have wondered about this ritual, what was the big deal?  I'd like to share with you one of the common themes that emerges in response to this question.
The message that I'd like to share is that this ritual is teaching us that details really matter.  The fruits of someone's land seem like no big deal at all, but to be able to elevate the trivial experience of experiencing a first fruit into a religious experience makes an impact on a person.  It would be easy to absent mindedly eat the first fruit, or to get so excited that the tree had finally grown fruits and just eat it without thinking where the fruit really came from.  So when a person consciously ritualizes the experience of anticipating their first fruits, and dedicates the experience to acknowledging that the fruit comes from God, it's a big deal.
This experience educates the person participating in it that everything comes from God.  We are not the true masters of the world around us, we need to acknowledge the role God plays in our lives, even in the small details.  When we have an appreciation for the Godliness of the small things, we can influence ourselves to put more thought into the details, and to pay better attention to details.  The details matter, when someone pays attention the details in our lives, we feel cared about and appreciated.  When we learn to pay attention to the details in the way in which we do everything, work, religion, relationships; we are showing that we care.

Parshat Vaetchanan

At the beginning of this week's Parsha Moses implores God one last time to allow him to enter the land of Israel.  Moses begins his request by saying אתה החלות להרות את עבדך את גדלך ואת ידך החזקה אשר מי אל בשמים ובארץ אשר יעשה כמעשיך וכגבורתך - You have only begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your strong hand, for what power is there in the heaven or on the earth that can perform according to Your deeds and according to Your mighty acts?

The way in which Moses says, "you have only begun..." has always had an impact on me.  Moses, the person who our tradition says spoke to God face to face, the person who knew all the mysteries of the Torah, the greatest man to ever live, has only begun to understand God's greatness?!?!  I would imagine, that if anyone in the world has ever understood God's greatness, it would be Moses.  Yet, Moses himself admits to his own inadequacy in being able to fully grasp the greatness of God.

How often do we assume that we understand something, or really know the way things work, and as a result approach a given situation with less humility.  When we come from this perspective we get angry at other people (or God) much more easily, and we fail to achieve our own potential greatness because of our own inability to absorb life lessons with a humble heart.  Moses serves of an example of humility in his ability to recognize that even he doesn't know everything, and he has not seen everything, this is what makes him so great!

Behar Bechukotai

This week’s Parsha, the double portion Behar-Bechukotai, begins with the laws of Shemitah.  “…the land shall observe a Sabbath of the lord.  Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield.  But in the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest... (Leviticus 25:2-4).
This idea of of working for 6 years in order to take care of our needs, but resting on the seventh is a direct parallel to the idea of Sabbath.  With the weekly Sabbath, we are told that for six days you may work, but the seventh day of the week we must cease to work.
In regards to Sabbath, in order to have a pleasant/restful day, a lot of work has to be done in preparation.  We have to prepare our food before the seventh day begins, prepare the house, prepare ourselves; all this work needs to be done in order for a positive Shabbat experience to occur.  Once the seventh day begins, we are no longer permitted to do any work.  Similarly, with the shemittah laws, in order for the people to survive the sabbatical year, they had to have been preparing for it the six previous years.
The notion of working for a designated amount of time in order to be prepared for something later becomes a very important idea in Jewish mysticism and how the mystics understand the idea of the relationship between this world and the world to come.  Some Jewish mystical traditions understand the duration of the world to be 7000 years long.  For 6000 years the world is preparing itself, and during the 7000th year, the world will reap the benefits of the work done in the previous 6000 years.  Whether we understand these years to be literal or not, the idea is a direct parallel to the Sabbath of the week and the Sabbath of the land.
Our job in this world is not to be primarily focused on the short-term, instant benefit of our work.  Everything we do should be viewed as an investment for the long-term benefit of the world, and ourselves as inhabitants of that world.  As you reap, so shall you sow.  The way in which we view the purpose and benefit of the work we do in our lives should always reflect the idea that we need to prepare the future, and not just be motivated by our own selfish short term benefit.  This idea is integral to the Jewish experience of space and time, as reflected in the laws of how treat the land (the shemittah – agricultural sabbatical), and how we treat the working week (the weeky Sabbath).  Judaism teaches us to think about preparing ourselves and our world for long term sustenance.   

Parshat Acharei Mot - Kedoshim

This week, since this year is not a leap year, we read two torah portions, Acharei-Mot and Kedoshim.  In the second portion, Kedoshim, God directs the Jewish people to be holy, and the rest of the Parsha is a list of the laws which make us holy.  One verse that I would like to discuss (19:11-12) reads, “You shall not steal, and you shall not deny falsely, and you shall not lie to one another.  And you shall not swear falsely by My Name, thereby desecrating the Name of your God – I am the Lord.”  Rashi, the medieval commentator suggests: “If you have stolen, your end will be to deny falsely; and then your end will be to lie; and then your end will be to swear falsely.”
This idea that one negative action will lead to another negative action is prevalent in Jewish thought and moral literature, not just in reference to the effects of stealing.  The idea being, that once you do something that is wrong, you have become desensitized to the inherent negativity of that act.  Initially, one’s ability to sense the wrongness of the behavior acts as a deterrent, but when that deterrent is no longer effective, the boundaries of acceptable behavior have moved for that person. When we habituate ourselves to negative acts, we no longer see them as being negative.  And, when we are habituated to doing negative acts, the human psyche needs to justify that behavior.  Eventually, we start to see the negative act as something positive, thereby negating the possibility of change.  This verse is teaching us the important impact our actions have on ourselves.  We are defined by what we do, therefore we should be careful that we are comfortable with the statement that our actions make about us.  There is a relevant rabbinic statement from Pirkei Avot (4:2), “A mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, and a sin leads to another sin.”  Nothing that we do happens in a vacuum.  This is true with regard to the way in which our actions affect others as well as ourselves.  
It is for this reason why the verse ends with the words, “I am the Lord.”  This phrase repeats itself throughout this week’s Parsha.  Its purpose in almost every case is to remind us that even when no one else sees what we will do, we still need to be honest with ourselves about our actions and their consequences.  In this case, it is often hard to see where we have convinced ourselves (and sometimes others) that what we are doing is right, simply in order to justify the behavior for our own conscience.  Nevertheless, no matter how many other people we fool with those justifications, when we fool ourselves, we end up the loser.    

Weekly Torah Portion: Tazria-Metzorah

In this week’s Parsha, Parshat Tazria/Metzorah, we are taught about tzara’at, a spiritual sickness which had physical symptoms.  If a person would get a certain type of blemish, they would be taken to the priest for a diagnosis.  The verse (13:2) makes a point of saying that they were taken, and the Ibn Ezra (Medieval Torah commentator) points out that the person was taken to the Priest even against his or her own will. 

The afflicted person was taken to the Priest and not to a doctor, because the cause of the disease was spiritual in nature, not physical.  The diagnosis therefore needed to reflect the spiritual fault, rather than physical manifestation of the disease.  Our tradition teaches us that this disease was usually a punishment for interpersonal misconduct, and speaking negatively about other people.
This type of behavior is one of the most difficult to avoid, it is hard to refrain from speaking about people in general, and it is even harder to resist listening to gossip when it is being spoken around us.  We are often tempted to believe that just speaking about someone is not harmful at all.  We tell ourselves, that we’re not actually doing anything wrong because the action is done through speech, there is nothing tangible, we don’t see how it is harmful.
The laws of tzara’at teach us that everything we do has an effect, even if we don’t see it.  Furthermore, sometimes the way in which we treat others is offensive to the people around us.  No one trusts a person who is known to be a gossip.  The way in which gossiping affects our relationships is reflected in the laws of tzara’at as well.  We may be oblivious to how the way in which we treat others is reflected in our personalities, but other people are not.  Therefore, even if the person who had been afflicted with tzara’at would not go to the priest for a diagnosis on their own, other people had the right to force them to go against their will.
No one likes being around such extreme negativity, but unfortunately the people who are being the negative force in the community are not always aware of what they are doing, so it becomes a communal obligation to fix the problem.  It is difficult to correct a person’s behavior without offending them, but if we are at least aware that there is a problem and that it shouldn’t just be ignored, then we can think of ways to make the situation better.  For instance, we can use this teaching to reflect on how we are being a negative influence on others and fix the problem ourselves, without having to be told by someone else.  Or we can try to gently move conversations in a more positive and productive direction when a social interaction devolves into gossiping.  But one thing we should not do is delude ourselves into thinking that this type of negative behavior is not going to have a negative effect on us and on our community.  

Weekly Torah Portion: Shemini

This week’s Parsha, Shemini, begins by describing the 8^th and final day of the consecration of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) for use in the desert.  For the first 7 days, Moses did all of the services himself, and on the 8^th day his brother Aaron took over from him, bringing the sacrifices and blessing the people.

This was an extremely joyous event.  The people had not felt as close to God as they did at this point in time since receiving the Torah on Mt. Sinai.  But the happiness of the moment was spoiled by death of Aaron’s two eldest sons.  After Moses and Aaron finished the service commanded to them by God, Aaron’s two eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu, decided on their own to enter in the Holy of Holies and bring an incense offering.  This unsanctioned act of worship led to their deaths. 

The Midrash quotes a verse from Psalms (75:5), “say to the boastful, don’t boast,” and then gives a list of examples of different characters in the bible of people who had a lot to be happy about, but who also experienced sadness in the lives.  The sentiment conveyed in this midrash is that even when things in your life are working out, don’t boast about it.  Even some of our greatest heroes have had moments of great happiness, but they also all have had sorrow too.  Having ups and downs is a part of life; everyone has their good moments, and everyone has bad moments.   The first example that the midrash uses to make its point is God.  God, the Midrash tells us, was incredibly happy when he created the world and mankind, yet he was very distressed when man brought the world down by sinning.  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all had immense blessings and so much happiness in their lives, and yet there was sadness and grief in their lives as well.  Skipping a few examples, we get to the example which makes this Midrash relevant to our Parsha. 

“Elisheva, the daughter of Aminadav was the wife of Aaron the high priest.  See how much happiness she had in her hands; her husband was the high priest; her brother in law, Moses was a king and a prophet; her sons were the assistant priests;  her brother, Nachshon, was the leader of the tribe of Judah.  Nevertheless, she had unbelievable sadness in her life when her sons went to bring their offering and were devoured by the flames of God.   Therefore the wise one says, ‘tell the boastful not to boast’.”

The message about not boasting impresses upon us the sobering reality of life.  We are given the feeling that when we are happy at the way things are going in our lives, we should not brag, because it’s just a part of life.  Especially when looked at in comparison of the greatness and blessing experienced by the heroes in the midrash, our reasons to boast are far less in comparison.  Additionally, if we think that we’re so great because things, thank God, are currently working out for us, the Midrash reminds us not to get too carried away;  There is no life that doesn’t have some sadness. 
But, in addition to this sobering lesson, if you look between the lines of what this Midrash is saying, there is an important, hopeful, message here as well.  It can be depressing to see other people’s lives and assume that they are more happy than we are because they have so much more to be happy about.  The Midrash is reminding us that all happiness is relative, no one is going to have only good things happen to them, and similarly no one in the world will only have bad things happen to them.  With this depiction of the way the world works, we can take comfort in the fact that we are never completely alone alone. 

Sometimes when we are going through things in our lives that make us feel depressed, we also might feel that no one can understand what we’re going through; that we’re alone.  This Midrash is pointing out that everyone in life, even our greatest heroes, have great moments but also have dark moments as well.  Experiencing ups and downs in life is universal. 

When we seclude ourselves, and cut ourselves off from other people, we limit our ability to see the complexity of other people’s lives.  On the surface, most people seem pretty happy most of the time.  So for the person who is struggling, if they cannot see beyond a surface judgement of the lives of the people around them, they will feel very alienated.  But when you get deeper glimpse into other people’s lives, you start to see the full spectrum of their experiences, both good and bad.  For the person who is struggling, the lesson is, push yourself to reach out for support.  Hopefully you will learn through the process of being supported that people care about you and that you’re never totally alone.  But doing this is a serious challenge to the person who is already struggling and is already feeling alienated.  Therefore the lesson for everyone is that we don’t always know what is going in the inner lives of the people around us; we don’t always know who is suffering.  With that realization we can train ourselves to be more sensitive to the people around us and more accessible as a means of support to someone in our community.   

Pesach Dvar Torah

In the Haggadah we read about the 4 sons.  The Haggadah discusses the types of questions that each son will ask, and instructs us on how to respond to each of them.  One of the striking things in this section is that the questions of the wise and wicked sons are not all that dissimilar.  Nevertheless, one is considered wise and the other wicked, and the way in which the Haggadah instructs us to respond to each of them is extremely different.
The wise son’s question is: “What are the testimonies and the statutes and the laws that Hashem, our God, has commanded you?”
The wicked son’s question is: “What is this service to you?”
You’ll notice that both sons say, “to you,” and both are asking about what is going on.  In response to the wise son, the Haggadah tells us to reply to his question by teaching him the laws of Pesach and how nothing should be eaten after eating the Paschal offering (or the afikoman which takes its place in the absence of the temple).
But in response to the wicked son the Haggadah tells us to be very harsh. Saying, “when he says “to you,” he is implying “to you,” but not “to him”! because he excludes himself from the rest of the community he has denied a fundamental principle.  You, in turn, should set his teeth on edge and tell him, ‘Because of this Hashem did for me when I left Egypt’ – implying ‘for me,’ but not ‘for him’!  If he had been there he would not have been redeemed.”
Why does the Haggadah tell us to respond so harshly to the wicked son’s use of the phrase, “for you,” and ignore the fact that wise son said the same thing?  What is there to learn about the entire for Seder experience from the vastly different responses for these two sons?
One possible explanation is that the difference between the two sons is in the tone of what they say rather than the content.  The wise son really wants to know and he wants to learn.  He points out that he notices that there are details, “testimonies, statutes, and laws…” and he is willing to go through the trouble and invest the time so that he can know and understand.  The wicked son, however, just says, “this service.”  He’s not interested in learning about the details, he dismisses the nuances, his tone is cynical.  He isn’t interested in learning.  He sees all the same things that the wise son sees, yet he clumps it all together in a dismissing way and is really asking a rhetorical question.  It’s like he’s saying, “why do bother with all of this stuff?”  He isn’t really looking for an answer, because his feelings are that “this service” is really meaningless, it’s a lot of irrelevant ancient practices.
Once we understand the difference in their questions we can understand the way that we are supposed to respond to them.  Since the wise son wants to learn, we respond by teaching him Torah.  The experience of teaching him Torah should leave a lingering taste and love of Torah in his mouth.  This is hinted to in the last line of the response to the wise son which says that we teach him that nothing should be eaten after the Paschal lamb.  Just as the taste of the Paschal lamb should linger in one’s mouth after eating it, the Torah should linger in the mouths of those who love Torah.  When a Jew has this type of love for Torah, this connection helps him through any of the troubles that he or she might experience in life.
By contrast, the wicked son is not interested in learning, he has already rejected the tradition in his mind.  There is no point in engaging him intellectually because he is looking to reject rather than to learn.  The wicked son does not have the Torah to hold on to when things are tough.  He can’t rely on the Torah to give him hope in times of trouble.  
The goal of the seder is to tell the story of Passover- to make sure every Jew knows that we were once slaves who had no hope of salvation, but God saved us.  From this experience, we learn that in every generation the Jewish people face trials and tribulations, but God will always save us.  The seder teaches us that ever since being freed from bondage in Egypt, the heritage of the Jewish people is to always have hope regardless of the situation.  The experience of Jewish history teaches us to have hope, teaching this perspective to our children is the goal of the Seder.  This is why we tell the wicked son, “if you don’t change your attitude about learning then you would not have been saved from Egypt.”  What we’re really saying is that your attitude will not give you the hope that you, as a Jew, will need to survive.  Without hope, you’ll despair and never be able to feel free.  

Weekly Parsha - Tzav

This week’s Parsha details how the daily sacrificial service was done daily in the Mishkan (tabernacle-while the Jews were in the desert), and later in the Beit HaMikdash.  One of the details that the Torah describes is the process of cleaning off the ashes on the mizbeach (the altar) in order to maintain the fire which was supposed to be constantly burning.  The verse says (Leviticus 6:5-6), “The fire on the altar shall be kept burning, not to go out…a perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out.”

Often we use fire as a symbol for passion, excitement and enthusiasm.  If we look at this part of the service allegorically, we are given good advice on how to lead a consistently meaningful religious life.  Many of us find inspiration and excitement at times of the year, during a specific religious event, or even when learning some torah.  In the heat of the moment,  we might promise ourselves to try harder or do more, only to forget about those plans shortly after.

The lesson from the Parsha is that it takes work to keep that “flame” burning.  If we don’t do anything to take care of it, nurture it, and maintain it  then it will extinguish.  With regard to our own religious lives, when we feel a passion and excitement about something, it isn’t enough to simply list plans in our minds .  When we are feeling the burning excitement, we should take a step back to establish realistic goals, and maybe even write them down so that we can look back over time and make sure that we are still on track.  As the saying goes, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration”.  We have to do the work to reach our potential.

Weekly Parsha - Vayikra

Many kids who grow up in the Modern Orthodox world spend what is called, “a gap year,” studying in Yeshivas or seminaries in Israel before going off to college.  So the summer after I finished high school, I packed up and headed to study in Israel.  During that year, for various reason, I ended up switching to a small yeshiva in Tsfat for the second half of my gap year.  This experience truly lived up to the gap part of the phrase gap year.  Living in Tsfat was a truly unique experience, not like anything I had ever done before, or like anything I have done since.  

I can vividly remember sitting and studying in the Yeshiva one day towards the end of the year when out of the blue the head of my school, the rosh yeshiva, came up behind me, clopped me on the back and said דניאל you might leave tsfat, but tsfat is never going to leave you.  When I think back to how different life was when I lived in tsfat, sometimes I wonder about what he could’ve meant.  After tsfat I went to college, I struggled with my beliefs and have evolved in my religious  perspective, I’m a very different Jew today than I was back then.  But there was something about that experience that I can look back on fondly and has influenced the way I feel about Judaism and my connection to God.  That feeling of closeness which I was able to experience somewhat naively back then, and have seldom experienced since, has been monumental in influencing the decisions and beliefs which have led me down the path I have chosen.

The necessity of developing memories which connect us to God is something I see reflected in this week’s Parsha.  This week, we begin reading from the book of ויקרא, Leviticus.  The parsha consists mostly of a list of all the different types of sacrifices which were to be brought in the tabernacle, and later in the temple in Jerusalem.

It’s no secret that the sacrifices are an aspect of Judaism that many if not most of us have a really difficult time connecting with.  In today’s day and age many of us find it hard to relate to animal sacrifice.  Some of us might even be turned off by its seemingly primitive and animalistic nature.  But despite our moral or esthetic discomfort with the idea of sacrifices, we can’t ignore the fact that these sacrifices are important in Judaism.  We mourn the destruction of the temple and the loss of our ability to bring sacrifices, our prayer services are modeled after the temple sacrifices, a hope for a time when we can once again bring sacrifices in the temple is incorporated into our daily prayers.

In the beginning of this week’s Parsha there are a number of strange things which have prompted many commentaries over the ages.  The Parsha opens with God calling out to Moses telling him to speak to the Jewish people and instruct them on how to offer sacrifices.  

If this section of the torah is supposed to be a practical guide for bringing sacrifices then why is God speaking to Moses, why not deliver the instructions through Aaron, the high priest?  After all it is primarily his responsibility to make certain they are done right. Yet any commands to Aaron are not mentioned at this point.

Furthermore, the introduction of sacrifices into Jewish ritual life would seem to be more appropriate if it had begun with פרשת צו where the technical details for the priests of how to do sacrifices is outlined.  So why does God give the list of the types of sacrifices before teaching the priests anything about their role in making sure the sacrifices were done right?

But the biggest question is in the first verse which says, “God called to Moses and said to him.”  It’s a redundancy which doesn’t have a parallel.  Usually the Torah either says that God called to Moses, or God spoke to Moses, so what is being added here by saying both?

All these problems can be resolved if we realize that the primary purpose of this week’s Parsha is not to teach us the practical laws of the sacrifices.  The torah is teaching us that first and foremost sacrifices are about giving human beings the opportunity to engage God in a relationship.  It’s not about a religious cult practice irrelevant to most except the chosen few, rather it is a model of the many ways to develop a relationship with God in a way that is open to and important to everyone. This is why the God is addressing Moshe in this week’s Parsha.  Who better to teach the Jewish people this lesson about engaging in a relationship with God than Moses, the man who spoke to God פנים אל פנים, face to face?  

Rashi gives us insight into why it was particularly important that Moses was the one to introduce sacrifices into Jewish life even though he would not be the one to perform the service.  Rashi comments on the word ויקרא, explaining that it is לשון חיבה.  The best way to translate this phrase is a type of loving or endearing statement.  

The word ויקרא is used in Isaiah to describe the way the angels glorify god’s name, which you might recognize from our prayer service in the קדושה prayer.  Before the angels proclaimed God’s glory, they would call out to each other, וקרא זה אל זה ואמר....  Rashi understands the angels calling out to each other as an act of love, they would call out to each other giving each other permission to be part of the group before they would glorify God’s name.  Just as they called out to each other in love, here in our Parsha God calls out to Moshe with love.

God and Moses have been engaged in a deep and complicated relationship.  Moses tries to say no to God when told to go to Egypt, Moses reprimands God when God wants to destroy the Jewish people for sin of the golden calf, and Moses also calls out to God in sadness and frustration when he needs to. But Moses is also the first one to sing praises of God אז ישיר משה… For Moses, God’s presence was real, it was a complicated relationship; it wasn’t just an abstract object of prayer.  God was to be constantly engaged in a relationship at different times, in different ways, and with different emotions.

Moses argues with God, he rationalizes with God, he praises God, he also obeys God and so much more, but most importantly he spoke to God פנים אל פנים face to face.  He engaged God in a deep personal relationship.  

This is why the sacrifices needed to be taught by Moses to all the people.  Moses’ message was that it is not only possible, but necessary to engage God.  We shouldn’t just observe and praise God;  Sometimes we should get angry or disagree; we should ask God for help with the same passion and realness that we fight with God; we need find ways to bring God into the entirety of our lives to highest degree possible.

The sacrifices are a model for engaging God in a variety of ways and times in order to build a deep and complicated relationship. The word itself קורבן, means to come close.  In what ways should we come close?  Most of us think of sacrifices as either something priests did on holidays with little to no connection to the average person, but really they are a symbol for the potential of the individual to have a personal relationship with God. There are many different ways to bring sacrifices and many different reasons to bring sacrifices.  The sacrificial practice given to us by god serves as a model of relationship building between man and God.  Just as there are so many different sacrifices, there are many different ways for a person to engage in a relationship with God.  For example some people experience God in acts of charity, others connect through studying, and for others through prayer.

All the details of the sacrifices can be seen as symbols to represent ways of bringing God into the vast sea of human experience.  There were sacrifices for guilt, gratitude, holidays, lifecycle events, atonement, sometimes by free will, sometimes they were commanded.  They all involved acts of moving, waving, pouring, throwing, sprinkling, and confessing as symbols of things that people do being part and parcel of the sacrifice experience.  And there were different types of things which were sacrificed, bulls, lambs, goats, sheep, cows, birds, oil, flour, wheat, fruits, and produce.  These varieties can represent varieties of people and each person’s ways of connecting.  And the way in which the same person connects differently at different times of the year or different times of their lives.

This idea is very important to me when I reflect on my experience in Tsfat.  The feeling and culture in Tsfat made it possible for me to engage in a relationship with God in a way that we usually don’t ever have the time or inclination to do. There aren’t a lot of distractions in Tsfat.  Sometimes at night I would find the time to sit alone in corner of the old city and talk to God.  It gave me an opportunity to talk about what was on my mind, express ideas, concerns, doubts, desires and to do it in a way that was directed at God.  While I have not been able to replicate this experience, and to be honest I’m not sure I’d still want to, nevertheless I look back on that experience with a longing for the closeness that I felt back then, and more than 10 years later those experiences still  help me focus and connect when I pray today.

And so the lesson of Parshat Vayikra is, whether we can bring sacrifices today like they did in the temple or just find the time to imagine and meditate, or something else, the message of finding ways to personally connect to God still resounds.  We may not be Moshe, but we are his descendants and we need to find a way to engage God as a real presence in our lives like hedid.  If you’re not sure how to do this talk about it with a loved one, a friend, a Rabbinical figure, but try.  ויקרא ה' אל מושה was just the beginning, God is calling out to all of us begging us to call him back.  

When you reach out to God, you may be surprised to find God reaching back.

Vayakel-Pekudei

The majority of this week’s Parsha contains in it a description of the construction of the Mishkan (Tabernacle).  The Parsha opens by discussing the types of work which are forbidden on the Sabbath.  The sages argue from the connection of these to seemingly disparate topics, that the work forbidden on the Sabbath is the exact same work that was needed to build the Mishkan.  Furthermore, the word for work here, in the context of building the Mishkan, is the same word used in Genesis when it says that God completed the work on the seventh day. 

Jewish mysticism learns from these connections that the physical labors which we abstain from on Shabbat have their spiritual mirror image in the heavens.  Everything we do has an impact on this world that goes far beyond our abilities to perceive that impact.  This is why these specific actions are forbidden on Shabbat.  So that we are not doing the very acts that God did to create the world on the day that we are supposed to be resting from creative activity in order to commemorate God’s creation of the world. 

One lesson to derive from this mystical approach is the significance of our actions.  Everything we do has significance and an impact on this world beyond our ability to notice it.  Therefore, it behooves us to act in this world with mindfulness, to consider the possible ramifications of everything we do, both good and bad.  We should all be motivated by mindfulness to perform more good and refrain from doing bad. 

Parshat Ki Tissa/My Brother's aufruf

This week’s Parsha contains in it the terrible tragedy of the sin of the golden calf, and the subsequent destruction of the tablets by Moses when he returns from Mt. Sinai to the Jewish people worshipping the idol they built in his absence. After destroying the first set of tablets and dealing with the people in the aftermath of this sin, God instructs Mosesto return to the mountain and carve out a new set.

When you compare the first and second set of tablets, we would automatically assume that first set is holier and of more importance than the second set, because they were made by God and not Moses. Yet, it is the second; man-made set that last for all eternity, while the divinely wrought tablets survived only for moments before being destroyed. This is strange because usually between things that are made by man to things that are made by God, it is the things that God makes which last forever.

Furthermore, in this week’s Parsha when Moses returns with the second set of tablets, we learn that his face was illuminated, there is no similar description to the radiance of Moses' countenance after having received the first set of tablets.

Despite the fact that they were manmade, it seems like the second set of tablets hold more significance than the first set which were made by God. How are we to understand this?

Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his commentary on this week’s Parsha, provides us with an approach as to how to make sense of this strange situation. Rabbi Sacks explains it by connecting it to a fundamental principle in Jewish mysticism.

Sometimes spiritual moments of awakening are initiated by God, and other times they are experienced as a result of the effort exerted by people. The Kabbalah calls these two types of divine human encounters – איתערותא דלעילה, איתערותא דלתתא - an awakening from above, and an awakening from below. The most important distinction between the two is that, while an awakening from above may be a more intense experience in the moment; it can have the power to change nature, but it does not change human nature. When the connection comes from above, the person involved was passive, there was no effort expended and therefore no permanent growth experienced. The experience is overwhelming, but it is fleeting and impossible to replicate. It is not the basis of realistic and sustainable relationship with God.

When the connection to God is motivated by the effort and struggle of the person down here, in this world, connecting to God through normal life, then a person’s nature can change, and true growth happen, and a meaningful relationship with God can develop. We get out of our relationships what we put in. To experience a true awakening that has a lasting impact on us, we need to do the hard work. This is why the Torah demands such a rigorous system of performance of mitzvoth and observing halachah in all aspects of our lives. The mitzvoth are for our benefit, they are the tools we use to develop a lasting connecting to God, in a way that challenges us and forces us to grow.

This is what is symbolized in the lasting nature of the tablets that Moses made versus the divinely wrought set, and it is why Moses' face shone with divine light after doing the hard work of carving out the second set of tablets. Just like the first set of tablets which were made by God and only lasted a short time, when we are inspired by an intense but fleeting spiritual emotion, our connection is severed when that moment passes. But when we put the work in to commit ourselves to permanent connection, even when it’s less intense, then just like the second set of tablets , it can stand the test of time.

There is a midrash which reflects this idea, the midrash is trying to establish what the most important verse in the Torah is. The midrash says,

Ben Zoma says that it is the shema, with its focus on the oneness of God.

Ben Nannas’s opinion is that the most important verse is, you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself, because of its focus on charity and obligations towards your fellow human being.

Ben Pazzi said that there is still a more important Pasuk than either of those. He cites the verse for the daily sacrifice which was brought every single day in the Temple. ואת הכבש האחד תעשה בבוקר ואת הכבש השני תעשה בן הערבים. Because of its focus on consistency. Without consistency, no feeling of religious fervor inspired by faith in God or by community is of any value.



This is an important lesson with regard to the way in which we consider our relationship with God. It also serves as a vital lesson about the relationship with a spouse and the transition of marriage, on the occasion of my brother's upcoming wedding this weekend.. When you first fall in love it is like the divinely inspired awakening which is intense and exciting, but it is not what gives the relationship the strength and tools to stand the test of time. The beatles were wrong, love is not all you need. What you need is consistency, hard work, and dedication. Marriage is 24/7, you are always together, not just in your good moods, but in the bad moods too. Marriage is about doing what’s best for the relationship even if you don’t feel like it.

At the end of this week’s Parsha, Moses makes a strange request of God, he asks God to maintain the divine presence amongst the people despite their sins, because as the verse says, “they are a stiff-necked people.” This is very strange because only a chapter earlier God said, “For I know them, and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me along so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.” What is going on? If God wants to destroy them because they are a stiff-necked people, why in the world would Moses tell God to remain in the their midst for the same reason?

I think that Moses is teaching us an important lesson about relationships. A relationship that has true love and can stand the test of time is not a relationship where there is no disagreement or conflict. It is when there is conflict, but that conflict is dealt with in a healthy way. It is normal for people who spend more time with each other than anyone else in the world to get on each other’s nerves, it is normal for them to upset one another. But when both people truly care about each other and are devoted to one another, they deal with those areas of tensions, and they can look on another in the eye when they’re upset. They do not avoid areas of conflict, through dealing with conflict in a healthy way, they make their relationship stronger.

This is what Moses was asking God. He was asking God to stick it out, to remain in a relationship that will take some work. There might be things that make you want to kill each other, but working through those moments makes the relationship so much stronger, and the love felt for each other much much deeper.

This is what marriage is all about. There will always be moments of love from above when you just feel like it’s right, but the true strength of a relationship comes from the work that the individuals put into the relationship when it’s not easy. Which is why the traditional Jewish blessing to give to a married couple is, “may you build a בית נאמן בישראל (secure household in Israel),” because a healthy relationship isn’t a passive experience, it is always a building in progress.

Tetzaveh

Looking for parking in New York City can often be an incredibly frustrating experience.  There’s a story of a man looking for a parking spot in New York City one afternoon.  He’s in a rush, he’s already late for a meeting and he’s been looking for a spot to open up for close to an hour.  In frustration, he calls out to God, “God please if you find me a spot, I’ll go to Minyan more often, I’ll learn more Torah, and I’ll give more tzedakah!  I just can’t look for a parking spot anymore, please make a spot open up for me.”  As he opens his eyes from his heartfelt prayer, he notices the car immediately in front of him pulling out.  So he looks up at the heavens and says, “never mind God, I found one myself.

There is a classic debate among theologians and philosophers both Jewish and non-Jewish.  To what degree is God involved in the world?  Does God have a hand in everything that happens, or is God like a watchmaker who is no longer involved in the operation of the watch after it has been put together and set in motion?  The bottom line is that we don’t know; religious belief is not the same as knowledge.  I know that the sky is blue; I know it because I see it very clearly, I don’t have a choice.  But I believe there is a God and I believe that this God is the primary mover of the world constantly willing everything into existence, I believe this whether it’s explicit or not, and it’s usually not.

When it comes to belief, God gives us a choice.  We can choose whether or not we believe in God, we can choose whether or not we believe that God is actively and directly involved in this world at all times, and we can choose whether or not we want to follow God’s commandments.  Our religion wants us to choose in the affirmative, but we have the freedom to make that decision for ourselves.

Matters of faith cannot be absolutely proven, to do so would make it knowledge of something and not belief.  When we try to prove a matter of faith, what we are really doing is establishing our reasons and reminders to believe.  In Judaism, Jewish philosophy and learning serves as an intellectual reminder that there is a God.  Shabbat, Holidays, prayer and many more mitzvoth are ritual reminders.  We also have physical reminders like the mezuzah, or the synagogue’s sacred space.  For a person of faith, we need these reminders to constantly keep the faith in a world where God is not always obvious. 

The tabernacle and its many artifacts served as physical reminders of the connection between the Jewish people and God.  This is evident in the beginning of this week’s Parsha, where we see the word for testimony – עדות, being used with regard to the items in the tabernacle.  The second verse of the Parsha says, “Aaron and his sons shall set the lights of the menorah in the tabernacle outside the curtain which is over the עדות.”  In the many translations, עדות, the Hebrew for testimony, is translated as the Ark of the Covenant.  Although the Ark of the Covenant is often used to relate to this idea of testimony, that is not the literal translation of the verse.

In fact, the Talmud in Masechet Shabbat 22b understands this verse to have a different meaning. The sages say that in this context the עדות – testimony is referring to the testimony of the Menorah, which gives testament to the idea that the divine presence dwells among the Jewish people.
Every day before sunset the Cohen would light the menorah lamps which were each filled with just enough oil to last through the night.  Every morning the Cohen would find six of the lights extinguished, but the middle light would miraculously burn all the next day until just before sunset on the following evening when the Menorah would be prepared and lit for that night.  This lamp was called the Ner Tamid, the continuously burning light.  It was a symbol for the connection between the Jewish people and God.

The Menorah was not a light fixture whose purpose was to illuminate a dark space, the room it was in had windows which let the light in during the day, and the room was not in use at night.  The Menorah’s sole purpose was testimony to the continuous connection of the people to God.  This reminder is necessary, because God’s presence is not naturally seen or felt in the world during our daily lives unless we actively choose to see the world that way.

This is one of the most important lessons from Megillat Esther and the story of Purim.  An interesting fact about Megillat Esther is that even though this is a religious document and part of the Hebrew bible, it does not contain the name of God, not even once.  There are also no explicit miracles in the story of Purim.  On the surface, it is simply a story of Jewish survival.  But the Jewish people at this time saw their survival as miraculous.  All of the coincidences which put Mordechai and Esther in the position to influence Achashverosh in way that would ultimately save the Jewish people were not seen as mere coincidences, the people saw them as the hand of God.

They chose to see their salvation coming from the hands of God even though there were no explicit miracles, they could’ve chosen to give themselves the credit for their survival and forgotten about God. This is why our sages in Masechet Shabbat 88a explain that on Purim the covenant between the Jewish people and God was reaffirmed for all eternity.

The Talmud discusses the Midrash which says that God held mount Sinai over the Jewish people’s heads when offering them the Torah and said, if you accept the Torah it will be good for you, but if not I’ll drop the mountain on top of you.  The sages of the Talmud point out the theological problem in this Midrash. In Jewish law, if a person is forced to sign an agreement under duress, the agreement is invalid.  So the sages make the same argument about the accepting the Torah at Sinai under the conditions in this Midrash.  The challenge is resolved by the Purim story.  At the end of Megillat Esther 9:27, it says, “The Jews upheld and received upon themselves and their descendants.”  The sages of the Talmud understand this statement to mean that they now voluntarily chose to uphold that which was already received, the Torah.  This acceptance makes the Torah a binding agreement between the Jewish people and God. 

To me, the contrast between the accepting of the Torah at Sinai versus that of Purim has a lot to do with the historical reality at the times of those stories.  We don’t have to understand the Midrash as saying that the mountain was literally held over their head, but it’s expressing the idea that it would not have been reasonable to see the Jewish people during the Exodus as even desiring to choose.  They had just experienced the outstretched hand of God miraculously saving them from Egypt, followed by the revelation of God at Sinai.  They didn’t have a choice because too much had happened for them to believe otherwise.  This was not the world that most Jews would live in for all of eternity.  Most of us live in a world where faith in God and God’s involvement in this world is a choice, because we don’t see God as obviously as they did then.  Therefore the Jews at the time of the Purim story serve as a more realistic role model for the rest of the Jewish people for all future generations.

God’s existence and involvement in the Exodus was a matter of knowledge, the people acknowledged God after the splitting of the red sea, proclaiming, “This is my God and I will exalt him.”  But God’s existence and involvement in the Purim story is not as clear.  The people of Shushan chose to see their redemption as being through the hand of God even though it wasn’t obvious.  And the people chose to obligate themselves to uphold the Torah because of their faith in God’s divine presence continuously dwelling amongst them.

We live in a world where, like the Jews of Shushan, we have a choice whether we want to see God, believe in God’s presence amongst us, and obligate ourselves to follow in the ways of the lord, is a matter of free choice.  But when we choose to see the world in such a way, we are illuminated by the divine radiance, like that of the Menorah, through this relationship.  

Parshat Terumah

In the second verse of this week’s Parsha it says, “You shall accept gifts for me from every person whose heart so moves him. (Ex. 25:2)” The Hebrew word for gift in this context, and the name of the Parsha, is Terumah.  This word is linguistically similar to the Hebrew word, Romem – to elevate.

The 18^th century Hassidic leader, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, has an interesting lesson about this verse in his torah commentary which connects these two possible interpretations of the word Terumah.  He says that the gift being brought to God is really an elevation of God in our own thoughts and intentions.  When the verse talks about the gift being brought to God by “every person whose heart so moves him,” it is alluding to a person’s thoughts.  The gift to God is really an elevation of God in the person’s own mind, when that person is voluntarily thinking about God and letting God influence their actions.  The thoughts and feelings, which is what God truly desires, is made real when the person actually does an act that was motivated by their thoughts and feelings about God. 

The lesson for us is to remember that is not enough to want to do something nice for another person, or to want to act in a more religious way.  It might be the thought that counts, but the thought isn’t real unless we actually do something with that thought.  

Parshat Mishpatim

There is a story in the Talmud of a perspective convert who goes to the great Rabbi Shammai and says, “teach me all of the torah on one foot (meaning in one moment).”  Immediately, Shammai kicks him out.  So he goes across the street to the other great Rabbi, Hillel, and asks him the same thing.  Hillel agrees, he says, “do unto your fellow as you would have done unto you, the rest is commentary now go and study.”  For the great Torah sage, Hillel, correct behavior is only half of the lesson of Judaism, the other half is that you need to study.

At the end of this week’s parsha there is a very famous and important passage.  It says, that Moses took the book of the covenant and read it out loud to the nation, and the nation responded: “Naaseh ViNishmah” – “all that God has said, we will do and we will listen.”  What an unusual  statement.  Usually, we LISTEN to a proposal, think about it, and then we decide whether or not we will do it. In this week’s parsha, the Jewish people first said they will do, and then only afterwards did they say they will listen.

The midrash explains that this is what made the Jewish people worthy of receiving the torah.  God went to all of the other nations of the world and asked them if they would like the torah.  All the other nations replied, what does the torah contain?  After hearing ideas distasteful to them, they each rejected the divine gift of the torah.  But the Jewish people merited to receive the torah from God because they first said (Naaseh), we will do, and then they said (vinishma) we will listen to what is contained in the Torah.

On the surface this story seems to be compelling us towards blind faith.  That we should blind ourselves to what is contained in the torah and just DO, even if we have no idea what we’re doing!!!  If this were the lesson of the midrash it would only be necessary for the Jews to have responded we will DO (naaseh).  But the real lesson comes from their whole response, we will do AND we will listen (ViNishma).

The addition of vinishma teaches us an important model of religious life.  It is not sufficient to just do religious things, in order to fully receive the torah in the way the Jewish people did after Sinai, we must also listen to what the torah is teaching us.  Listening means that we must learn about the religious acts that we do, not just the details about how to perform mitzvoth, but the reasons why we have each of the mitzvoth.  We must think about how these acts give meaning to our lives.  By taking this lesson of vinishma to heart, ultimately, our religious life will influence our Jewish identity.

This declaration, Naaseh ViNishma, we will do and we will listen is a lesson on how to educate towards religious practice.  The doing needs to come before the learning.  Let’s use art to illustrate this point.  You can describe to someone a beautiful work of art, describe the theory behind the piece, show them the techniques used in creating the artwork, and explain to them how the lighting and color makes it a masterpiece.  But, unless they have seen that work of art for themselves they will not appreciate its beauty.  In contrast, if after having seen a work of art, experienced its beauty first hand, and learnt about the technique and theory which made that work of art a masterpiece, then the appreciation of that work of art will be enhanced far greater than it could have been before.

The same can be said for religious experience.  Studying about religion, while a worthwhile endeavor, might not be a sufficient in itself as a way to enrich one’s personal religious experience.  In order for a religious life to be fully appreciated, it must be experienced.  Once someone has familiarized themselves with the religious experience study will enhance that practice.

This is why we teach children at an early age to do mitzvoth.  Even before they are capable of understanding the meaning of a mitzvah we encourage them to do.  Our hope is that doing the acts will lead them to wonder why they do it, and this inquiry will lead to their own unique personal connection to the mitzvah.

Another aspect of this unusual statement, Naaseh vinishmah, is that it describes how your religious choices can influence your religious perspective.  The things you do or don’t do can directly influence your questions and doubts.  Your overall religious perspective, the questions we ask, the challenges and doubts we struggle with about our religion are often, directly influenced by whether or not we are practicing.  Naaseh Vinishmah is telling us that our learning, our soul searching, our questions, and our doubts should exist, that learning is an integral part of the equation.  The statement says we will do and we will listen.  The torah is directing us to do the learning, search our souls, and have questions.  But the questions which stem from a place of observance are fundamentally different than those from a place of non-observance.

There is a story which is told about a group of young Jews during the Enlightenment.  They are questioning the value of religion, and they feel that religion is a thing of the past which no longer has any relevance.  But in the spirit of intellectual honesty they want to give Judaism one last chance.  So they write down a list of their questions and issues and they decide that one of the young men from the group will go to learn in a yeshiva and try to find out if Judaism can answer their questions.  After some time the group reconvenes, and they ask their friend who had just spent considerable time immersed in Jewish life and Jewish learning if he has found the answers for their questions..

He describes how great his experience has been, how he has learnt so much and that he is so happy, but no word about any “answers.”  So they ask him again, “what about our questions did you find the answers to our questions!?!?”  He responds, “no, but I no longer have those same questions.”  When his religious perspective shifted so did his questions.  The torah wants our questions, but it wants them to be from a place of commitment to a Jewish way of life.  Choosing to commit to a Jewish way of life will shape your perspective differently than questioning from the outside.

The message which comes from the entire statement of Naaseh Vinishma is a vital component of Jewish life.  Action is the body of Jewish life, without action there can be no Jewish experience.  Study needs to go hand in hand with our Jewish experiences, because study is the spirit of Jewish life.

Parshat Yitro

This week’s Parsha contains in it the receiving of the Torah by the Jewish people on Mt. Sinai.  It is one of two times in the Torah that the Ten Commandments are listed.  Today I’d like to focus on the last of the Ten Commandments, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female slave, or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Very simply, this commandment is instructing us not to desire things that don’t belong to us.  This commandment seems to instruct us regarding having a high quality of life as it relates to the statement in  Pirkei Avot (4:1), “Who is rich?  The one who is happy with his or her lot.”  The idea being, that the jealousy which comes from coveting what other people have is a result of not being content with what we have.  When our personal happiness is judged not by what we have alone and our own feelings of contentedness, but on what we have in comparison to others, we will never find true happiness.  There will always be someone with more me, therefore it will be impossible for me to achieve the true satisfaction of a happy life.  Therefore the Torah commands us not to covet the belongings of other people. 

If my focus is on what are the things that I need to make myself happy, then I will be able to set reasonable and meaningful goals for myself, resulting in a true sense of satisfaction and achievement with my accomplishments.    It is difficult in our consumer driven society to see other people’s nice stuff, (be it clothing, gadgets, cars, homes, schools our children attend, etc.) and want these things for ourselves.  It is human nature to desire nice things, so how do we fulfill this commandment?  The Talmud Yerushalmi (Berachot 4:2) describes a blessing that some of our great sages would say at the end of the day which relates to this idea.  The prayer is, “May it be your will (God) that others not be envious of us, and that we be envious of others.  By asking God for help and directing our minds to not want to covet we can train ourselves to want to overcome our jealous feelings.  It is difficult to overcome this strong emotion, but with God’s help and some practice and dedication on our part, we can train ourselves to minimize our jealous feelings.  

Parshat Beshalach

The Parsha opens with the verse, “Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for God said, ‘The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.”  What’s interesting to me about this verse is that in Hebrew, the phrase, “although it was nearer,” could also be translated as “because it was nearer.” 

What does this change in translation add?  I believe it highlights a lesson about the importance of learning to cope with adversity.  The verse could now be saying, in my own words, “God did not want to take the people of Israel on the easy path, because if they didn’t learn how to deal with adversity they would not be able to successfully stand up to challenges.”

Religion is not about making life easier by taking away the need to think for ourselves and blindly follow commands.  Religious questions should not be dismissed with simple answers. Instead, we must first recognize the importance of the questions themselves and the struggle implicit in the questions being asked.  When approaching religious life without the depth and complexity that comes from struggle, often, that faith will not be able withstand challenge- it will easily fall apart.   

It is important to learn how to struggle with matters of life and religion so that when our beliefs are challenged, the foundations do not come tumbling down.  Furthermore, a deep personal connection to Judaism blossoms out of struggle and enhances our positive religious experiences.  This type of relationship with our Judaism is necessary to fulfill a phrase from later in the Parsha, “this is my God and I will glorify it.”

The sages used this term about glorifying God as the proof text for a concept of making the mitzvoth beautiful in the way that they are practiced.  A Midrash comments on that verse saying, “through my following of God’s commandments I will cause others to say that there is no God like God.”  It is necessary to have a deep and complex relationship with our religion to acquire such a deep and complex love of Torah and mitzvoth.  And, when a person fulfills God’s commandments from a place of such depth, it impacts not only on the individual himself, but on all those with whom he/she contacts. 

Parshat Bo

This week’s Parsha marks the beginning of the Jewish people’s freedom from slavery in Egypt.  It begins where last week’s Parsha left off, with the last 3 of the 10 plagues, and then continues with Pharaoh allowing the people to go free and of their preparations to leave. In addition, the Jewish concept of freedom begins to emerge in this week’s Parasha.
On the eve of the Jewish people’s departure from Egypt, Moses speaks to the people about educating their children on 3 different occasions.  This is important because it is teaching us that the importance of freedom is about much more than just achieving freedom from bondage.  Moses could have spoken about how great it will be to free and how amazing God is for freeing the Jews. Instead, he chooses to reveal those lessons through the perspective of “you will teach your children about those things.”  Because freedom is about much more than just being freed from slavery, freedom needs to be about preserving that freedom as well.
According to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Judaism’s concept of freedom needs 3 institutions to exist; parenthood, eduction and memory.  “You must tell your children (and the children of your community) about slavery and the long journey to liberation.  They must annually taste the bread of affliction and biiter herbs of slave labour.  They must know what oppression feels like if they are to fight against it in every age.  So Jews became the people whose passions was education, whose citadels were schools, and whose heroes were teachers.  Covenant and Conversation, p. 78-79.”
There is a line from Pirkei Avoth 6:2 which says, “There is no one so free as one who occupies himself with the study of Torah.”  Because true freedom is about the ability to rise above our passions, to control ourselves, and in the words of Rabbi Sacks, “To control oneself without having to be controlled by others.”
With this understanding we see that freedom is more than just doing whatever we want, and it’s not just another word for nothing left to lose (from the popular song, Me and my Bobby Mcgee). Freedom is sometimes expressed in our ability to not do whatever we want, to control our passions.  The Torah teaches us how to do this.  When we learn Torah and follow the Tora,h we learn how to control ourselves, and we keep ourselves from falling into unbreakable habits and from becoming slaves to the culture around us.  Torah gives us the means to march to the beat of our own drummer.

Parshat Va'era

The Midrash on this week’s Parsha makes an interesting observation on Pharaoh’s behavior.  There is only one time during the entire episode of the 10 plagues that Pharaoh says that the Lord is just.  In fact, from the beginning, Pharaoh denies even any recognition of God, let alone that God is right and he is wrong.  Yet, after the plague of Hail Pharaoh says, “I am wrong, God is right, And I and my people are the villains (Exodus 9:27).”  What influenced this change of heart in the Pharoah?

The answer proposed by the Midrash is a very interesting one, with implications about how to influence other people in our own lives.  The Midrash says that it is the way of human beings to surprise their enemies, attack them, and take what is theirs, but God does not act in this way. when God strikes human beings it is to educate.  Therefore when God intended to send the hail to Egypt as the 7^th plague, Pharaoh was instructed (Ex. 9:18-19) to make sure all of the beasts were in from the fields for their protection and the protection of the servants who tended them. 

On this verse, Sforno (16^th century Italian sage) comments:

So that I might show you my power – to move you to repent.  As it is written: “for I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies…” (Ezekiel 18:32). 

The most influential thing in the change of attitude in Pharaoh was not the strong hand of God, Pharaoh remains obstinate in the face of the plagues.  It was the way in which God displayed his mercy which impacted Pharaoh. 

It is important for us to remember this when trying to influence the people around us, friends, children, family.  It is often the case that people are influenced more by merciful and understanding behavior than by browbeating them into accepting that our way is correct.  

Parshat Shemot

Rabbi Bachy Ibn Pakuda (an 11th century Spanish Rabbi) in his book, “duties of the heart,” teaches an important lesson about humility and appreciating the value of other people.  He tells a story about a great Jewish sage who was once asked about how he became the greatest sage of his generation.   The wise man answered by saying that it is because every person that he ever encountered was greater than him at something.
The sage was saying that his greatness was not a result of his own superior qualities, but rather an appreciation of the fact that every person possesses some quality greater than his.  It’s often hard to see that in people.  I’m sure we can all  make a list of people whom we think don’t have much value, or whom we think dont have much to offer.  But this is counter to the lessons of our Jewish tradition.  There is a quote in Pirkei Avoth which says, who is a wise person, someone who can learn from all people.
This Jewish value is such an important lesson to the entire world about how to develop a worldview in which we see every single human being as posessing an inherent value. None of us are so great that we can’t learn from another.  This is lesson is reflected in the very beginning of this week’s Parsha.
The Parsha, Shemot, means names.  And the Parsha begins by listing the names of Jacobs’s sons who came to Egypt with him.  Most of us would think that when making a list of someone’s children, the obvious way to list them would be in age order.  Not only is it logical, it’s somewhat subconscious as well.  Having an order helps us remember things, sometimes to a fault.  I can remember numerous times when my mother, wanting to call me, had to go through all my older sibling’s names first- , Adam, Joshua, Deena, Daniel.  Her brain recalls all of her children in order until she finally gets to me, I’m sure many of us have done the same.  It’s just the way the brain works.
So it’s strange that when listing the names of the Jacob’s children, the names are not listed in age order.  Furthermore, over the course of the Chumash, the tribes of Israel are listed about 15 times, and they are almost never given in the same order twice.  What is the reason for this?  Other than to test our memory, why wouldn’t the Torah just list them in age order?  There has to be some reason for this arbitrary method.
The Midrash in Shemot Rabbah takes note of this disparity and teaches that the torah is not particular about maintaining a fixed order to teach that no one tribe is greater than the other.  Everyone has some inherent value for everyone else.
This message has two important lessons regarding our own self-worth.  We should never ever think that someone is of no value.  It’s often easier to believe that about others, because then we don’t have to force ourselves to see the good in others .  But achieving true wisdom requires us to see the value in everyone.  Sometimes, the only way to do this might be engaging someone whom we would usually avoid.  Going out of our way to connect to someone whom we’ve never spoken to before, or to someone whom we may dislike, with the attitude that this person has something to offer, is a positive model about how to interact within a community.  Respecting another does not necessarily even mean that you have to like them, but it means that you have to treat them civilly enough to interact with them and get to know them so that we can find their intrinsic value.
But it also has an important impact on the way we view ourselves.  It is also lesson to a person who thinks that they have no value, or that they are not worth much.  If one has that perspective of themselves, they may never offer insight for fear of appearing ignorant, or may never work for  a cause because of a belief that their opinion doesn’t matter.  But if we realize that we are all of equal value and all have something to teach, we should be motivated to feel confident in displaying our true selves to the world.
This is an important lesson to remember on Martin Luther King Day.  Amongst the many important legacies that he has left this world, Dr. Martin Luther King is a testament to the power that one person has to simply motivate and unite other people around a cause, and to the impact  of many disparate voices uniting on important issues can have on the world.  Good Shabbos!

Parshat Veyechi

Hello Everyone,

I came across a short paragraph while learning this week’s Parsha that I found very powerful.   I’d like to share it with you for this week’s dvar torah rather than offer my own words.  It is taken from a summary of a class on this week’s Parsha off of the website, www.tanach.org.   Here is a link to the page where the following paragraph is taken from, followed by the lesson on the Parsha itself.  Shabbat Shalom.  http://www.tanach.org/breishit/vaychiab.htm

Yaakov's blessings to his sons in Parashat Vayechi touches upon the very essence of the concept of "shevatim" (tribes).  Why should God's special nation divide itself into twelve factions?  Does this not invite contention and disunity?  The answer is that Bnei Yisrael must represent the ideal of Godliness to the rest of mankind.  It is only natural for people to group together according to common interests, inclinations, goals, talents and the like.  The objective, however, must be for the different groups to work together with one another, harnessing their unique capabilities for purposes of "Shem Shamayim" (God's Name).  Thus, the twelve-tribe system, when properly implemented, accurately captures the message God's nation must bring to humanity.  This nation declares that yes, different groups of people with different interests and tendencies can work together harmoniously and work towards the common good.  Yaakov blesses each son by wishing him the proper utilization of his respective talents, such that they all come together to fulfill the destiny of God's special nation.