We are the Light

There is darkness all around the flame of a candle,
But the darkness cannot put out the light. — Poet Harry Ellison

At this time of year when we are often with friends and family, occasionally people will not live up to our expectations. Our task is to be the light, even when there is darkness around us, and to spread light wherever we are and to whomever we are with, not allowing the darkness to put out our Divine light within.

The Place

This week’s Torah portion is Vayetze, which means, and he departed. It tells of Jacob’s leaving home and of his vision of a ladder set on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. Angels were ascending and descending on it. Jacob then sees God in his dream, who tells him that the land will be his, that he will be protected, will have many descendants, and that he will eventually return. When he awakens, Jacob is shaken to have had such an experience. He devises a ritual to commemorate his vision and declares a vow: if God will be with me and guard me on this way; give me bread to eat and clothes to wear and I will return in peace and God will be a God to me, then the stone I have set up as a pillar shall become a house of God and whatever you give me I shall tithe to you.
Jacob is an everyman: the person, like us, in the midst of real life. He got himself into a bad situation and had to leave his home. He leaves without money, unsure of himself. He is alone and on his own. And then he has an encounter: a dream that is more than a dream, that changes his life and leads him to an awareness that this place is holy and God is present.
In the Rabbinic literature and in the writings of Kabbalah, God is known as The Place. The Torah Commentator Rashi speaks about a person’s place, and the Chassidic mystic known as the S’fat Emet writes that each person must find the place belonging to him. This “finding” is initiated by God through an experience. So too, we are contacted by God through our experiences. How we respond to those experiences, those contacts with God, those opportunities for closeness, leads us-- B’Makom-- to The Place, to finding our own place. Each of us must find that place that is more than just identity. Like identity, our place is potential. Jacob, in this portion, was all potential; and Jacob’s relationship to God was potential. Jacob says, if you, God, will provide for me, then I will repay the kindness. At this point, Jacob did not yet trust his own vision. His own experience was not enough for him to believe it. The Chassidic teacher Rebbe Baruch Mezbitzer taught, when one is confident that he is fully secure on earth, eventually he will gear his thoughts heavenward. Jacob is in The Place, but he cannot yet believe it. The Place is within and without, as God is within and without. As identity is always developing and becoming, our place is always developing, continually being realized within and without. Jacob was like us, a flawed human being and also like us, he had great potential to find his Place. Like us he had great potential for becoming the Place of wisdom. That wisdom, that knowledge is available to each of us. It is our Place.

Acting and Allowing

This week’s Torah Portion is Toldot, which means generations or offspring. It tells a famous story: Rebecca’s asking God why she feels such action in her womb and God’s prophecy: two nations are inside you and the elder will serve the younger; then Esau selling his birthright to Jacob; later an interlude about relocation and digging of wells during a famine, and last, Rebecca’s subterfuge to trick her husband Isaac into giving the blessing of the first born to Jacob instead of Esau. Each of the people in this family shows interesting personality traits. Rebecca is independent minded: a person of action. When the twins are struggling within her she doesn’t suffer in silence but inquires of God to find out why. Rebecca takes matters into her own hands and forces the final outcome. Esau is, like his Mother, a person of action but is also impulsive like his Mother. Perhaps that is why they do not admire each other so much: we subconsciously see our weaknesses in each other and reject what we identify with, our less than totally worthy attributes. Jacob is more of an introvert, like his Father Isaac. Isaac is a person who allowed the drama of the akeda, the binding and his almost sacrifice, to unfold because of his attribute of compliancy. And it is this attribute that I would like to highlight tonight: Compliancy versus action, the difference between acting and allowing. When Rebecca’s twins were jostling inside her and she asked God why, she received a prophecy that guided her actions all the rest of her life. In light of the prophecy and her closeness to Jacob one wonders if Jacob knew of it and sought to buy Esau’s birthright because of it. The prophecy may have caused her to prefer Jacob, but it definitely was a factor in her decision to persuade Jacob to trick his father. Torah commentators have pointed out that Rebecca’s action is a stratagem of the weak: a plan by someone without power who sought to influence events in the only way she thought she could. But was it really the only way? The Torah does not tell us directly but suggests from the progression of subsequent events that Rebecca’s forcing of the events was a great sin. She is separated from the son she loves and never sees Jacob again. Jacob too is exiled for 20 years, is tricked by his uncle Laban into marrying the wrong wife and is unable to return for many years, having earned his brother Esau’s hatred. There is Divine justice in the consequences of these actions. Those who lie will be separated from those they love. Those who deceive will themselves be deceived. Forcing the events shows a lack of faith. Had Rebecca trusted in God, the prophecy would undoubtedly have unfolded, but in a different way. Isaac takes an alternate path, allowing events to guide him, He learned from his almost-sacrifice the lesson his father, Abraham taught him: God will see to the sacrifice, my son. In other words, we don’t have to force events. We are asked to participate and to choose, but not to create a bottleneck; not to resist the events, but to flow with them and trust that God will see that our lives work out. Abraham is the perfect model: he is a man of action when his nephew Lot is in danger. He a person of faith and trust when asked to be a player in events he does not understand: Leaving his native land, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the ritual of circumcision, and the call to sacrifice his son. After Isaac had blessed Jacob, and Rebecca wanted to send Jacob away for his protection, Isaac complies, sending Jacob away with another blessing and not with angry or blaming words. It reminds me of one of the aphorisms from Werner Erhard’s EST training: It is easier to ride a horse in the direction it is going. We must act in our lives, with courage and conviction, but also knowing that Divine Wisdom is there to guide us. It always amazes me that the problems in my life work out, or really, are worked out for me. Schedules fall into place. Difficulties eventually evaporate. Thoughtful waiting for Divine guidance yields spiritual fruit, allowing us to feel that we are not alone, that we are never abandoned. If one way is blocked, another way will surely appear. Understanding comes after the fact. The sages of the Talmud expressed this paradox as well: Everything is forseen, yet freedom of choice is given. We must act in accordance with our highest values, knowing that we are in divine partnership with God, who cares for us and cares about us. Rabbi Diane Sharon, writing in the newly published Women’s Torah Commentary puts it this way: “The outcome of Rebecca’s story may teach us to allow the Divine process to unfold for a while before we decide to take action on God’s behalf. Perhaps the gift from our biblical mother is her prompting us to….let Divine intention blossom in its own time. May each of us have the wisdom to act when action is needed, and the faith to trust that God is always working on our behalf.

Honor and Holiness

This week’s torah portion is Chaye Sara, the life of Sarah. It begins with Sarah’s death. Abraham mourns her and then he purchases a piece of land as a burial plot for her. He then arranges for their son Isaac to have a suitable wife, marries a concubine and has more children. Finally he sends them away with gifts. Abraham dies, old and content, and is buried by his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. It is fitting that this portion, which has so much to do with death, is called the life of Sarah. Abraham honors Sarah in death, as he did in life. He begins by instituting the Jewish custom of the eulogy: a formal speech presenting the life and attributes of a person. He then honors her by mourning for her and by purchasing his first piece of land in Canaan, the cave of Machpeleh in Hebron, where he and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah will be buried, and which is a holy site to this day. He honors her further by making sure that Sarah’s line will continue: sending his steward Eliezer to his and Sarah’s family in Mesopotamia, to select a wife of whom Sarah would approve. He honors her again by sending his concubine and her children away, in accordance with Sarah’s wishes that Isaac be Abraham’s sole heir. His example is taken up by Isaac and Ishmael, who honor Abraham by coming together to bury their father, and again by Isaac who honors Sarah by bringing his wife Rebecca into Sarah’s tent, remembering his mother, and keeping her memory and influence alive and present in his heart and his actions. There is a wonderful midrash in the Zohar that says that if the parent of a bride or groom has passed away, God personally brings the soul of that person under the chuppah, the wedding canopy. This is what Isaac symbolically did by marrying Rebecca in his mother’s tent. What and who we honor shows our ability to create the holy. Holiness, Kadosh in Hebrew, means to set apart, to separate. What we separate are actions but also feelings. We separate acts, the sacred from the profane: objects, the holy from the mundane. But we also separate feelings to do honor to someone else. The S’fat Emet wrote that by showing honor, we attach ourselves to the Root, by which he means God’s holiness or Presence. And this is the way we feel and maintain a connection with the Divine. It is the way we refine ourselves and promote fineness of feeling: allowing that which is greater than ourselves to come to the fore and allowing our ego to bear witness to its proper place, using it to promote our will to create holiness. We honor values by living them. We honor people and God by loving them. By showing honor to others, we demonstrate our best qualities, the innate holiness we have been given by the Eternal. It is this ability to attach ourselves to God’s infinite Oneness that we experience as love.

The World and How It Works

This week’s Torah Portion is Noach, or Noah, and the Flood. Because of the corruption of humankind, God brings a flood to destroy all life except Noah, the righteous man, his family, and the animals in the ark. This quasi history, mostly parable teaches us about the principles of life and how our world works. It gives us answers to some of our most heart wrenching questions: why is the world so imperfect? Why are there disasters, disease, tragedy. Why do we have good days and bad days? We may not like the answers, but this portion does at least seek to give us some insight into these questions.
Originally there was no disease and few natural disasters. The parable says that we lived to unimaginably advanced ages. Methuseleh we are told, lived 969 years. Noah lived 950 years. There were no checks on human corruption. The world became worse and worse. Like a financial system with inadequate regulation, the system, which is all of a unity, could not sustain that amount of greed, selfishness, untruth, rapaciousness, impurity, and crime. So God put in place a new system: a system of automatic regulation. God would sweep away the old system. In this new system the maximum life span was 120 years. Under the new system human imperfection that led to selfish or sinful acts, would be worked out and expiated little by little, constantly, in small and large ways. No one person would be allowed to accumulate too much of a burden of negativity. Less worthy acts would be taken care of in the course of a life. God would constantly communicate with us through the circumstances in our lives, letting us know how we are doing. We would not have to ask, as former Mayor Ed Koch did, “How am I doing?” We would be able to take an honest look at our lives and know how we are doing because of, what is called by Rabbi Noson Weisz, the feedback loop: we do something good and are blessed; we miss the mark and do something less worthy and are sent a correction. But it’s not always so clear when and why the negative things occur, or why terrible things happen to people who seem to be virtuous. We may ask: why in the story of the flood did so many have to perish? Why the animals, why the plants? The story teaches us that what we do affects everything else. We are all connected to all existence, all being, and to God. When we choose only for ourselves, God is hurt, and the world cannot continue in that pattern. Rashi comments on the first verse of the portion: These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a righteous man; perfect in his generations; Noah walked with God. Rashi says the offspring of the righteous are good deeds. Our sages agreed that the more righteous deeds a person does, the clearer is the correspondence between what happens to that person and their deeds. The sages knew this because they each experienced it in their lives.
But this story teaches us not only how our world is constituted but also about our power to promote goodness. When we do our part we need not be overwhelmed by destructive forces. We participate in our own salvation by choosing that which helps the world to be a better place. As our sages taught, the evil impulse and the good impulse, the yetzer hara and the yetzer hatov, are both within us. It is up to us to broaden the good impulse for our own good and the good of the world. A prophet of God reported God’s words: “The world at times is like an open wound that needs to be mended with the thread of Love. The needle is intention and the thread is kept alive with prayer.” It is up to us to pour the balm of love upon that which is wounded and to be of those who repair what is rent; to be menders and not destroyers. It is also up to us to communicate with God when we are in need. The Eternal God hears us and knows our intention, sending us blessings and allowing us to live even when we fall down, judging us in mercy and helping us to improve. May we be worthy of the power for good given to us and the faith and respect for us that has been accorded to us by, in the words of God through the prophet, “God of the Pure Light.” Our world is beautiful, and we can have an enormous effect on our lives and also on the world. The system works in our favor. God wants to bless us. May each of us broaden the goodness within us, the Godliness within us, and experience how much blessing we may create.

Eve, Adam, Serpent: Intuition for Consciousness

As we begin the Torah again: at B’reisheet – at the beginning, we have the treat of delving into the riches of this first Torah portion. Because it is written as a story, that is, in symbolic language, it is open to every possible interpretation, and all are valid. Someone once quoted to me from an unknown source, the wonderful line, if you love anything enough, it will give up its secrets. In reading this first portion over and over again with each Bat and Bar mitzvah student, I have had the great opportunity to encounter B’reisheet many times in a year and think about what it may mean. Tonight I would like to consider the expulsion from the Garden of Eden that we know so well. What is it really about? Is it about crime and punishment? Perhaps. Is it about the dawn of civilization? I personally think so (and those who attend the Wednesday night Torah study will hear more about this). Is it about receiving consciousness? Certainly. At one time we were like the animals, living in a metaphoric Garden of Eden. All our food was provided by God; and then we ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. We became conscious. We had choices. We had to work for a living. A punitive interpretation calls this Original Sin. It says that eating from the Tree of Good and Bad was the wrong thing to do. But wait! God made us and God, in the story, made the metaphoric tree and put us in the very same place. In B’reisheet it says, God placed the tree “in the midst of the garden,” in the center, where we were meant to find it. We found it before we knew right from wrong, before we were conscious, perhaps in some fog of semi- consciousness, before we received the blessing, or the burden, of moral choice. In the story, the man had been told about the tree but it was the serpent who really knew about it. The serpent represents an additional source of knowledge outside our five senses. It is notable that the serpent spoke to the woman. This validates our own experience of reality; it is what we call a woman’s intuition. We know that men and women think differently, and that women’s special talent is an access to a feeling side that helps us and that is a potential source of knowledge and wisdom. Listening to the serpent is a tricky business, we are told in this story. We receive messages from our intuitive feelings. They may be only the urgings of our physical cravings, or they may be legitimate sources of information from the soul. The Torah says, in Rashi’s translation, “and the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable for comprehension.” This tells us that reason must be added to feelings to produce a correct result, which we know to be true. It also tells us that women are often the agents who bring intuitive wisdom to their husbands, which is also often validated by experience. But not always. We each, male and female, have our masculine and feminine sides that supply us with wisdom and enrich our total personalities.
And then Adam and Eve ate and became conscious. First the snake was punished. It was to go on its belly, eat dust, and be despised. And indeed, our intuition is often discounted. If we can’t see it, touch it, hear it, taste it, or smell it, in our empirically minded society, it doesn’t exist. But the snake is real. It is a legitimate source of wisdom when coupled with reason. The woman’s punishment was the possibility of fear and oppression: the fear of pain in childbirth, of knowing what may lie ahead in the future, and the potential to be unequal: in class, in wealth, in employment. Animals are all equal. Choice creates divisions. The man was sentenced to work for a living, to farm the soil instead of merely gathering food from the trees. The possibility of farming was a consequence of consciousness and was necessary for the efflorescence of civilization, of many people living together in cities. The story tells us that the receiving of consciousness was a great gift from God. In order to receive the gifts of consciousness: free will, self determination, great cognitive development, creativity, humor, spiritual attainment, we had to give up dependency, ignorance as bliss, the world of instant gratification; and the Torah tells us that that world was good. But this world is also good, better I think, or perhaps just different. Rabbi Gelberman says in his book, Spiritual Truths, change is the coin with which to purchase one experience for another. Was God angry with us for eating of the tree? I say no, God was not angry. God was just very smart. God got us to take responsibility for our choice to become conscious: to sign on for all its consequences: to be full partners in the dance of choice that we engage in with God. If God had been angry with us, would the Eternal One have called us over to clothe us? In effect, God said, “My children, you may be cold. Here I made you these beautiful warm clothes, and by the way, have a cookie before you go.”
This Torah portion tells us that life is not set up to be easy: it isn’t supposed to be; that consciousness brings change and challenge that may bring, as Rabbi Gelberman also says, blessings in disguise; that God’s wisdom set up a satisfying, interesting, life of growth for us in which we must go forward out of the Garden in order to have the feeling of being back in, close to the Eternal Presence. Meeting change with optimism, courage, and eagerness we may find our way back to God by freely choosing to leave. That is the legacy of Adam and Eve: they gave to us our ability to choose interesting, satisfying lives for ourselves, with God’s blessing. And the rest of the Torah tells us how to be conscious moral beings who can find our way back to union with God. May this year of Torah plant seeds of holiness in each of us, allowing us to see the beauty of our own spiritual paths and guiding us to choose with love and compassion.

Without Barriers

Tonight we are celebrating Shabbat Sukkot: a sukkah of peace and a sukkah of plenty. As Sukkot is the third of three pilgrimage holidays specified in the Torah, we have an opportunity to encounter the Eternal presence in gratitude a third time. At Pesach we thank God for our existence as a people, for our freedom, and for our liberation. On Shavuot we thank God for giving us the Torah and teaching us how we should live; and on Sukkot we thank God for sustaining us with the plentiful food the earth provides. But on Sukkot there is an important difference. We come to Sukkot after soul searching and repentance. We return to God in a more purified state: cleaner, lighter, and for a brief time, unburdened by our sins. The S’fat Emet distinguishes between two types of teshuvah or return: the first type is the forgiveness of our sins. The second type is a return with the intention to draw closer to God: to remove the barriers between us and God.
Rabbi Arthur Green points out that the Baal Shem Tov taught this too: that the problem with sin is that it is a hindrance. It comes between us and God, preventing us from doing the good that brings us close to holiness. It is a barrier of our own making: perhaps a barrier of guilt, a barrier of anger, a barrier of depression, or a barrier of disappointment that prevents us from serving God in joy. But at Sukkot, all barriers have been removed. The Torah reading on Shabbat Sukkot is the one that describes the attributes of God’s personality. The Eternal God, compassionate and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin. These are the attributes in our own human personalities that help us to break down our barriers; that help us to keep ourselves from putting up walls in our souls. Dwelling in the sukkah after our repentance, we can come closer to feeling the quiet contentment of our spiritual center. The S’fat Emet tells us that in doing the work of self purification during the days of Awe, we have made ourselves fit vessels to receive the Divine blessings. When we dwell in the sukkah during Sukkot, in the open air, we can just be, as we are meant to just be on Shabbat; and have the opportunity to feel at one with ourselves and with all creation. Our sins have fallen away and with them, the pretenses that keep us away from aligning ourselves with goodness and peace. Sukkot is a precious time: a time to dwell closer to God simply out of our intention to do so; to dwell closer to our source, closer to what is real and valuable in human life. On this Sukkot may we experience the sukkah of peace and the sukkah of plenty: the peace that comes from joyous service to our own divinity and the divinity of others, and the plenty which is the flow of God’s blessing to each one of us.

What were we supposed to remember?

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tetze, which means, when you go out, contains 72 laws, more than in any other Torah portion; There are laws about negligence, divorce, inheritance, returning lost objects, and fair business dealings, among many others. Then, at the end of the portion is a puzzling commandment, which reiterates a statement from Exodus: (Deut. 25:17-19) Remember what Amalek did to you by the way, when you came forth out of Egypt; How he met you by the way, and struck at your rear, all who were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God. Therefore it shall be, when the Eternal your God has given you rest from all your enemies around, in the land which God gives you for an inheritance to possess, that you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget. If God wanted the Amalekites to be forgotten, why mention their name? God certainly can cause a nation to die out, without asking us to take part in their demise. But something is being asked of us. It seems like a paradox: what is it that God wants us to remember and what is it that we are commanded to forget? A detail is added here in Deuteronomy that was not in the account in Exodus: that Amalek struck the rear where our weakest members walked, when we were faint from thirst and exhausted from the journey. Amalek therefore attacked out of sheer hatred, not because we were a threat. The Chassidic Rebbe Kedushas Levi wrote that we are being asked to eradicate is the evil aspect, the Amalek that is within us. Perhaps it is our habit of being critical and judgmental of others: attacking others for their weaknesses, rather than acknowledging our common humanity and recognizing that we carry the same faults within us. When we criticize others, we act as if God were not present and listening; as if we are not a part of the Oneness of creation, as if we were not, in reality, attacking ourselves. Two other Chassidic masters, the Yid HaKodesh and also Rabbi Hannoch, speak about arrogance: that Amalek is the arrogance within us and that forgetfulness comes from arrogance. In effect, we use others to make ourselves feel better: to allow us to forget about our own faults and to escape thinking about them. This forgetting leads to regarding another as an It, in the language of Martin Buber, and not as a Thou: a holy encounter of one soul to another. In remembering Amalek, we must remember that how we treat others is a sign of how comfortable we are with ourselves. Can we accept all that is within us, or are there parts of ourselves that we still reject? Have we integrated enough parts of ourselves that we can be truly loving and giving, helping others when we encounter them rather than attacking what is weakest in both of us? What would have happened if the Amalekites had greeted us in love: with water and food? Then competition would have dissolved into cooperation, fear into friendship, and destruction into blessing. When Amalek becomes a mirror, we can see how similar we are to every other human being and acknowledge our common human needs for sustenance, connection to each other, and union with the Divine. As we approach the Holiest season of the year, may we blot out our need to judge and hate, may we forget any slights or insults that come our way and see only the good in others, forgiving them for their and our common weakness; and may we always remember how much blessing flows to us from choosing love.

Walking toward bliss

This week’s Torah portion is B’haalotecha, which means, when you raise or light. It speaks about kindling the menorah, and the consecration of the Levites. It describes the journeying of the camp; and there are two regrettable incidents: one about the people who complained about their diet of manna, and another in which Miriam and Aaron were gossiping about Moses.
The Torah describes the incident of the manna this way, as translated by Rashi: the people were like those who seek pretexts of evil in the ears of God, and God heard and God’s wrath flared. And also later, The rabble that was among them cultivated a craving and the Children of Israel also turned and wept, and said, Who will feed us meat? We remember the fish we ate in Egypt free of charge, the cucumbers and melons, the leeks, onions, and garlic. But now our life is parched, we have nothing before our eyes but the manna. The people had just begun to journey, having only recently left Sinai and set forth for their first three day trip away from the site of the revelation. Nachmanides writes that the Israelites were feeling sorry for themselves. Perhaps the trip was arduous; perhaps, as Rashi claims, they were seeking an excuse to evade the commandments, or the trip itself, as if, Nachmanides writes, they were acting under duress or compulsion. The truth was that they had freely chosen to leave Egypt, and freely chosen to accept the commandments of the Torah, and yet, here they were, complaining and making excuses in order to rebel against God, either out of boredom or fear. They even go so far as to wish they were back in Egypt. God is portrayed here as a God who cares passionately about their moral life: God sends a fire to consume the edge of the camp, and later sends meat: so much quail that they will eat it for a month, but God also sends a plague to those who developed the craving and led others to wish for more than the manna. This section prompts the question, does God punish? The Torah clearly sets forth the principle of reward and correction, or perhaps, expiation. My teacher, Rabbi Gelberman, feels that God does not punish. He says that God wants to bless us, but that we choose the wrong things. We do it to ourselves. I feel that God sends corrections to teach us and also to expiate our transgressions. But in another sense, I have come to feel that everything that happens, occurs to draw us nearer to the Divine Presence. There are no bounds to the respect our Creator has for us. God truly respects us: our ability to learn and to serve at a higher level than what we are comfortable with. When we, metaphorically, desire to return to Egypt: to practices we have left behind, or to practices we should have left behind, the Eternal will show us that we must return to a higher path; to walk the path that leads to God.
There is a story in the commentary Sifre: A king put a tutor in charge of his child and gave the tutor orders and said: I do not want the child to eat harmful food or drink harmful drink.” The child fumed against his father and said, “It is not because he loves me; he only wants to deny these things to me.” Of course, the child cannot have the wisdom to see how much the father loves the child. The child only sees the negative. We also, sometimes see the glass half empty rather than half full. It is our perspective that is lacking. We easily mislead ourselves that what we interpret as negative in our lives is really negative. Often the intended learning or correction, sent by the Eternal One who is full of goodness, is missed.
Rashi ascribes a wonderful statement to God, when the Israelites are in the midst of their complaints about the journey and the food. Rashi imagines that God says to the Children of Israel, I had intended it for your benefit, so that you would enter the land of Israel immediately. This statement reinforces my strong feeling that everything that happens, tends toward the good, because God is goodness and goodness flows from God. The Divine Presence sends us experiences that lead us to harmony with that Presence: through correction or, we hope, blessings. If we only had the vision, we would see the radiance ahead. We would see that we are being guided toward holiness and away from wrong paths. The world cannot move toward harmony without transgression being cleared. That was the meaning of Noah and the flood. Because God is perfection, there must be justice, as well as mercy. Mercy alone will not allow the perfection of our world. Sin must be cleared in some fashion. All that happens allows us and consequently, the world to move, even if slightly, toward God’s nature, which is goodness. We, being so far from God, cannot see the bliss toward which we are walking. May each of us come to realize that the Eternal is guiding us toward goodness, and may we be attentive, curious, and grateful for such a marvelous journey.

Within God

This week’s Torah portion is Nasso. It is a continuation of the census of the Levites which began in the previous chapter. Nasso is an amalgam of several different topics. It contains a section about committing sins and the Trial by Ordeal, in which a jealous husband could bring the wife he suspected of adultery, before the Priest. It also contains the laws of the Nazirite, a temporary monk or nun who took vows to dedicate a period of time to God, and it contains the Priestly Benediction, with which rabbis still bless their congregations, Finally the giving of gifts to God by each of the 12 Tribes is catalogued.
In the section about committing sins, it reads: When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against God, and if that person is guilty; Then they shall confess their sin which they have done; and he shall make restitution for his trespass in full, and add to it its fifth part, and give it to him against whom he has trespassed. In another translation it says, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, by committing treachery toward God. But in actuality, what the Hebrew really says, is, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass in God, B’Adonai. This phrase, in God, is a very profound teaching. It tells us that when we do anything, right or wrong, that we really dwell within God’s being. The fact that we are alive, and that we live within all existence is another way of saying that we live within God, the same concept given to us in the Shema. It also leads to the idea that in our strivings, spiritual and mundane, we are really fighting against ourselves, fighting against that which we are: our true nature.
And we know this: the struggles we have in life are really against ourselves. The teaching in Judaism is that we struggle with the two sides of ourselves: the right side, which is characterized by the good impulse or the Yetzer hatov; and the left side, which is characterized by the contrary or bad impulse, the yetzer hara. In the Talmud it says, A person should always incite the good impulse to fight against the evil impulse. For it is written: Tremble and sin not. If a person subdues it, well and good. If not, let that person study the Torah. For it is written: ‘Commune with your own heart’. If he subdues it, well and good. If not, let him recite the Shema’. Berachot 5a and also, a part of the Mishna: You SHALL LOVE THE Eternal Your GOD WITH ALL Your HEART… WITH ALL Your HEART, MEANS WITH Your TWO IMPULSES, THE EVIL IMPULSE AS WELL AS THE GOOD IMPULSE. Berachot 54a When we think of ourselves as having a good and a bad impulse, it’s very clear that these are both within us: that goodness, compassion, generosity, and love comes from us; and that selfishness, hatred, meanness, and anger also come from us. That recognition is part of the maturing self. A person who acknowledges that my own hatreds are projections onto others of my own inner passions is in a position to willingly modify existing habits and behaviors.
But also, this knowledge can lead to the recognition that, as our warring impulses, what Rabbi Schneur Zalman calls the divine soul and the animal soul, are both us; that we are also at war with God, which is also part of us. Perhaps it is more polite to say that we are part of God, but the concept is the same: we struggle against God, which is also part of who we are. Our separation from God is as illusory as the separation between the two sides of ourselves.
The laws of the Nazarite also teach this lesson. The word, Nazir, according to Rashi, comes from the Hebrew root, to separate. The Nazarite separates her or himself from others. She is not allowed a haircut or the coming in contact with the dead. A Nazirite must not eat grapes or grape products or drink any wine. After the period of separation is completed, the nazarite must bring a sin offering. Our sages have puzzled over this: why would a person who has dedicated this time to holiness have the obligation to bring a sin offering? Surely, as a nazarite, the person would be committing less sin rather than more sin. The answer given is that the nazarite has deprived himself of the pleasures created by God for humankind to enjoy, and by not enjoying them, has committed a sin. But I think the sin is also about separation. In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Hillel says, do not separate yourself from the community. The separation the nazarite indulges in is not approved of in Judaism. Monks in Judaism have been abolished. We don’t go to a hermitage up on a mountaintop to meditate, to become better Jews: we strive to improve ourselves in the midst of life in the community. I would suggest that it is easier to be a good person all by oneself; or even in a community of monks who strive for self improvement. What is harder is to become holy in the midst of every kind of person, every kind of experience, every kind of situation. But that is existence: that is true oneness; that is God. When we separate our good from our less worthy impulses, we know that we speak in a metaphor. It is harder for us to live as if we knew that we are living within God. Our struggle is finally, within existence and within God. After mentioning sin the Torah continues: But if the man has no redeemer to to whom to return the debt, the returned debt is for God, for the priest.This teaches that we can redeem each other, with the recognition that we are part of one another and part of God. Each person I meet is someone who may save my life. Each person has something to teach me. Each person allows me the privilege of performing a deed of Lovingkindness. When I separate myself from another person, redemption is farther away, because both of us dwell within God. The Divine Presence is can never be fragmented when I acknowledge my kinship with each person. When I send love to you, I send love to God. When I overcome my baser instincts, I repair my relationship with God. We can feel the great oneness in our natures with every act of love. R. Eleazar said in the Talmud: May it be Thy will, O Eternal God, to cause us to dwell in love and brotherhood and peace and friendship; confirm us with a good companions and a good impulse in Your world, Berachot 16bMay each of us feel this truth in our hearts and live that truth in our lives.

Hearing in the Nothingness

This week’s Torah portion is Bemidbar, which means, in the Wilderness. It is the first portion in the book of Numbers, so named because in the beginning of the portion, God asks Moses to take a census of the male Israelites who are eligible for the fighting force which will, in time, be called upon to conquer the land.
This portion takes place in what the Torah called the Wilderness of Sinai. The place of giving the Torah was barren, arid, desolate, rugged, and empty, a fitting place for the Torah to be received, for many reasons. As there were no distractions and no other groups of people there, Israel could be alone with God for that moment of Divine communion in which the 10 commandments were revealed and the laws of Torah were expounded.
The late 19th Century sage known as S’fat Emet quotes a Midrash: “there was a prince who entered one city after another, only to see the populace flee before him, until he came to a ruined city, where he was greeted with praise. Said the prince, this is the best of all the cities. Here I will set my throne.” Perhaps this story accurately depicts both the desperation of the prince and the lack of choice of the inhabitants, and mirrors the position of God and the Israelites. The S’fat Emet derives the word, “midbar”, from the root which means to lead or rule. We were a people without power, ripe for teaching and leadership. In this sense, perhaps the wilderness was itself a school, as was also suggested by the Israeli historian Nachman Ran. The setting, itself, was to teach us something. We were captive, and out of desperation, receptive; and in fact, Israel was ready to accept a body of laws that was unknown to them and say to God, we will do and we will hear.
But what really happened, as we read in the Torah, was not that simple. After hearing the 10 Declarations, the Israelites pleaded with Moses that hearing God’s voice was too frightening to bear. They wanted Moses to hear God’s voice and they would listen to Moses, receiving the information second hand. It was terrifying to be alone with God; yet only in that aloneness could be found the connection to God that we have been trying to recover every since. The Talmud teaches that in order to truly receive the gift of the Torah, we must make ourselves open like the desert (Nedarim 55a) But being open is difficult: it is fraught with danger, vulnerability, and more than that; it means giving up that which we think we know. The sage Or Chayim claims that the real effort in learning Torah is in negating our own mind in order to understand the mind of God. In metaphoric terms, we have to leave Egypt: the life we know and understand, the life that makes logical sense to us; and enter the wilderness of the soul, which is called nothing. In kabbalistic thought in the Zohar, “the Ancient Holy One is called ayin (nothing)… the hidden, unapproachable, the transcendent”. In order to understand God, we have to enter the state of Nothing. As Helen Keller once said, through my handicaps, I found my work and my God.
The aloneness of nothing is what is sought in meditation. Meditating on the breath or the name of God allows one to leave the realm of the “I” and enter the space of the oneness of all being. The Torah teaches us to reach this state, not by meditating, but in the midst of life, by negating our ego desires for the will of God. That is what is meant by the passage we read after the V’ahavta, which speaks about wearing the fringes of the tallit: not to go about after our own heart and own minds, but to be guided by God’s will, as revealed to us in the Torah. In detaching our power of action from our own desires, we truly recreate the nothingness of the wilderness and allow God’s voice to be heard within us. The commentary Mechilta reminds us of this. It says, the Torah, like the desert belongs to no one. It is accessible, open, and free to all. But in order to hear, understand, and accept the ancient wisdom, we must first ourselves, become like the desert, and empty ourselves of the inner voices that are not God but ego, in order to hear the true ones that are spirit and soul. Abraham Joshua Heschl says it this way: “ We have so much to say about the bible, that we are not prepared to hear what the bible has to say about us.” What the Torah says about us is that God is accessible through self negation and deeds of love. The wilderness is really a fertile place where we are taken care of with great compassion. We are never abandoned in this wilderness, but are taken by the hand and led to holiness.. I end with a quotation from the Zohar which comments on the Song of Songs (191a): When Israel “is very lovesick for her Beloved, she shrinks to nothing until only a dot is left of her, and she is hidden from all her hosts and camps. … He knows that his Beloved is lovesick like himself, so that none of her beauty can be seen, and so through the voices of those warriors of hers her Beloved comes forth from his palace with many gifts and presents, with spices and incense, and comes to her and finds her black and shrunken, without form or beauty. He then draws near to her and embraces and kisses her until she gradually revives from the scents and spices, and her joy in having her Beloved with her, and she is built up and recovers her full form and beauty” As Heschl points out, God has never given up on humankind: always hoping to find righteousness among us, and showing us how to travel there. May each of us find a true home in the quiet of the wilderness, guided by the loving Presence who gave us the great gift of Torah.

Our 20 % Contribution

This Week’s Torah Portion is Bechukotai, which means, In my decrees. It is the last portion in the book of Leviticus. It’s famous for containing a list of blessings and the Tochacha, a longer litany of curses. The blessings will come from God for carrying out the dictates of the Torah and the curses will, at first, be corrections; and then greater and greater misfortunes for willful disobedience. There is a section about redeeming things that have been donated and consecrated to God: a house, a field, an animal, and a tithe. In each case, the item in question can be redeemed, but also in each case, 20 per cent or a fifth must be added to its value. When something in the Torah is repeated, as here, the added fifth is repeated four times in this portion, it raises a red flag. In fact, the added fifth is mentioned a total of nine times in the Torah: eight times in the book of Leviticus, and once in the Book of Numbers. In the portion, Vayikra, the beginning of Leviticus, we are told that if we commit a sin unintentionally, we must confess, bring a guilt offering and add a fifth of its valuation to it. The same commandment applies later in that portion, to intentional sin: lying or stealing. The stolen items must be returned and a fifth added to the value. In Nasso, the second portion in the book of Numbers, we are told that any sin we commit we must confess to and add 20 per cent.
What is this 20 per cent all about? And is it as straightforward as it seems? Many of you have heard of the great kabbalist Isaac Luria and his circle, in 16th Century Safed in Israel. Rabbi Isaac, called the Lion or Ari, developed a theory of creation, The theory begins with Nothingness, called Ayin, and proceeds to the Divine becoming Manifest. Creation began, according to the Ari, with the Ayn Sof, the unimaginable infinite light that is without end; that which we call God, filling all existence. But in order to create a material world there had to be tzimtzum, or contraction. Luria theorized that God contracted the Divine Presence into vessels, but the vessels could not contain God’s Divine light, and shattered. The broken vessels that remained were mere shells or husks, called kelipot, which still contain Divine sparks. Luria taught that it is our task to redeem the husks, finding the Divine sparks within the matter that comprises our material world and raising them up to holiness. This is called Tikkun Olam, or repair of the Universe. In this way we may be active participants in healing the world. Luria’s theory relates to the concept of the added fifth in the following way.
The added fifth that God requires of us goes beyond our obligation to give to charity. It is, in a sense, God’s conception of our contribution to creation. God seems to be saying to us, “My children, I know that you will do what is right sometimes and what is wrong sometimes. When you do wrong, it hurts me, because you are a part of me and of my creation. Here is a way to fix the wrong by fixing the fabric of all creation. Bring an extra 20 percent of repair to what you have done. I’ll do 80 % of the work, but you can lift up a part of the universe and create holiness by your contribution of the fifth.” God seems to be asking us not only to restore what we have done to its original state, but to actually have a part in perfecting the world by our participation and contribution. We are dignified by God with the role of creating, like the Creator: not only putting back things to their original condition, but creating cosmic change for the good. When we realize what power we have to create goodness, we can effect changes in our very reality. The message of the added fifth is that we can do much by going beyond what is technically required of us: in kindness, in giving to charity, and in repairing the relationships we have bruised or damaged. We can find the holiness in the husks of mundane matter and release Divine sparks. The added fifth shows us how important we are to God in being co-creators of goodness and harmony. May we come to understand how much we can achieve for good and how important our contributions are to the infinite light of God in the Universe.

OUr 20 % Contribution

This Week’s Torah Portion is Bechukotai, which means, In my decrees. It is the last portion in the book of Leviticus. It’s famous for containing a list of blessings and the Tochacha, a longer litany of curses. The blessings will come from God for carrying out the dictates of the Torah and the curses will, at first, be corrections; and then greater and greater misfortunes for willful disobedience. There is a section about redeeming things that have been donated and consecrated to God: a house, a field, an animal, and a tithe. In each case, the item in question can be redeemed, but also in each case, 20 per cent or a fifth must be added to its value. When something in the Torah is repeated, as here, the added fifth is repeated four times in this portion, it raises a red flag. In fact, the added fifth is mentioned a total of nine times in the Torah: eight times in the book of Leviticus, and once in the Book of Numbers. In the portion, Vayikra, the beginning of Leviticus, we are told that if we commit a sin unintentionally, we must confess, bring a guilt offering and add a fifth of its valuation to it. The same commandment applies later in that portion, to intentional sin: lying or stealing. The stolen items must be returned and a fifth added to the value. In Nasso, the second portion in the book of Numbers, we are told that any sin we commit we must confess to and add 20 per cent.
What is this 20 per cent all about? And is it as straightforward as it seems? Many of you have heard of the great kabbalist Isaac Luria and his circle, in 16th Century Safed in Israel. Rabbi Isaac, called the Lion or Ari, developed a theory of creation, The theory begins with Nothingness, called Ayin, and proceeds to the Divine becoming Manifest. Creation began, according to the Ari, with the Ayn Sof, the unimaginable infinite light that is without end; that which we call God, filling all existence. But in order to create a material world there had to be tzimtzum, or contraction. Luria theorized that God contracted the Divine Presence into vessels, but the vessels could not contain God’s Divine light, and shattered. The broken vessels that remained were mere shells or husks, called kelipot, which still contain Divine sparks. Luria taught that it is our task to redeem the husks, finding the Divine sparks within the matter that comprises our material world and raising them up to holiness. This is called Tikkun Olam, or repair of the Universe. In this way we may be active participants in healing the world. Luria’s theory relates to the concept of the added fifth in the following way.
The added fifth that God requires of us goes beyond our obligation to give to charity. It is, in a sense, God’s conception of our contribution to creation. God seems to be saying to us, “My children, I know that you will do what is right sometimes and what is wrong sometimes. When you do wrong, it hurts me, because you are a part of me and of my creation. Here is a way to fix the wrong by fixing the fabric of all creation. Bring an extra 20 percent of repair to what you have done. I’ll do 80 % of the work, but you can lift up a part of the universe and create holiness by your contribution of the fifth.” God seems to be asking us not only to restore what we have done to its original state, but to actually have a part in perfecting the world by our participation and contribution. We are dignified by God with the role of creating, like the Creator: not only putting back things to their original condition, but creating cosmic change for the good. When we realize what power we have to create goodness, we can effect changes in our very reality. The message of the added fifth is that we can do much by going beyond what is technically required of us: in kindness, in giving to charity, and in repairing the relationships we have bruised or damaged. We can find the holiness in the husks of mundane matter and release Divine sparks. The added fifth shows us how important we are to God in being co-creators of goodness and harmony. May we come to understand how much we can achieve for good and how important our contributions are to the infinite light of God in the Universe.

What is Logical and Rational?

This week’s Torah portion is Behar, which means, on the Mountain. God gives Moses the rules for shemitah, the Sabbath of the land, and the Yovel, or Jubilee, the 50th year in which the land is returned to its original owners and slaves go free. Fair business dealings for land rental are given, and we are told that the land belongs to God. This portion contains a number of interesting concepts that stress kindness, charity, integrity, and also trust in God.
A famous passage speaks about trust. Levit. Chapter 25, v.20 says, And if you shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our produce; Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And you shall sow the eighth year, and eat still of old fruit until the ninth year; until its fruits come in you shall eat of the old store. This remarkable section stresses that what is logical and rational must not be allowed to determine our every action. Our sages in the Zohar have said, “As below, so above.” This indicates that we are actors in a script that is partially of our making. The Zohar goes on to say, B’reiseet 1:61a But when mankind corrupt their way and do not observe the commands of the Torah, and sin before their Master, they, as it were, thrust the Shekinah out of the world, and the earth is thus left in a corrupt state. For the Shekinah being thrust out, another spirit comes and hovers over the world, bringing with it corruption. It is in this sense that we say that Israel “gives strength unto Elohim”, that is, to the Shekinah, and thereby makes the world more secure.
The Torah tells us that God will provide a miracle for us every seven years, but that the miracle is conditional upon us playing a part in it. In what way can we be said to play our part? During the seventh year no planting is to be done. No one owns the produce the land naturally grows. This creates equality among rich and poor. Rabbis Sharoun Brous and Jill Hammer in The Women’s Torah Commentary, quote the medieval Rabbin Luncitz as saying, All strife originates from the attitude of mine is mine, and people claiming their prerogatives. But in the seventh year, all are equal, and this indeed can generate peace. During the seventh year we are to see the world as it is supposed to be, where each person is equal to everyone else and people are not valued primarily in economic terms.
In the book Living Mussar every day, by Rabbi Zvi Miller, the book Duties of the Heart is quoted: Typically when a person chooses a career, his priority is How much money can I make. The wisdom of the Torah guides us to consider a more dignified outlook. Our primary focus should be to fulfill the divine injunction to improve the world to the best of our capabilities. ….If we follow the counsel of our sages we will purify our motives and thereby enhance the quality of life for others as well as ourselves.
Another important verse describes a person who has had to sell himself into indentured labor. We are asked to redeem that person. The Hebrew is very interesting. It stresses the word, imach, which means with you, and this word is mentioned several times in this portion. The idea of other people being with us, or part of us, in other words, being our brother’s keeper, comes to mind. The other is then seen as part of ourselves, which is the true, yet hidden reality. The seventh year, when the land rests allows us to put to rest our desire for gain and advantage. This word, imach, is a profound statement of a deeper truth; that taking care of those less fortunate influences the miracles that will occur. That active repair of the world changes the outcome of our reality. That taking care of the land under our stewardship influences our well being. That playing our part in carrying out God’s directives can change or at least influence future events. If, as the Torah portion states, the primary force in the Universe is God, then how we carry out that which we are asked to do: to be trusting and altruistic, allows us to help to bring about the blessings of peace, harmony, and plenty that God intends. This seemingly irrational principle in the portion Behar is one upon which our world is built. It is up to us to help God bring us the blessings, through right action, caring, and the knowledge that each act of goodness from us, below, brings down acts of goodness from above. May we come to realize this deeper truth, and act with the knowledge that God depends upon us to help goodness come forth into the world.

Wounding and Healing

This week’s Torah portion is Metzora, which refers to one who has the skin disease Tzaraat, which is like leprosy. It is a continuation of last week’s portion, also about skin diseases, other conditions which render a person ritually impure, and that person’s purification. This portion describes discharges, sexual emissions, and fungus in houses. The person who was ill was declared healed by the Kohen, the priest, and that person brought two birds: one to be killed, and one to be sprinkled with spring water mixed with the blood of the first bird and, and then set free. Three objects were also part of the ritual: cedar wood, hyssop, which is a shrub with spongy leaves, and red wool. The person to be purified was to shave, bathe, and undergo an additional period of quarantine, and then be admitted back into society and the family dwelling.
The Talmud points out that Metzora can also be a contraction of the words, motzi-ra, one who brings forth evil. The Rabbis of the Midrash, Leviticus Rabba, assumed a mind – body connection. They identified ten offenses for which a person might contract a skin disease including: (i) idol-worship, (ii) gross unchastity, (iii) bloodshed, (iv) the profanation of the Divine Name, (v) blasphemy of the Divine Name, (vi) robbing the public, (vii) usurping [a dignity] to which one has no right, (viii) overweening pride, (ix) evil speech, and (x) an evil eye. Other commentators such as Rashi quoting Tanchuma, insisted that haughtiness led to unkind speech, which led to illness, specifically skin diseases. At last Saturday’s Torah discussion we talked about the importance of not blaming the victim and not assuming that a person who is ill has committed sins. As I said last Friday, God is the judge of others: we are the judge only of ourselves.
The S’fat Emet quotes another part of Leviticus Rabba, which refers to a line in Deuteronomy, “I have wounded, and I heal” (Deut. 32: 39) He says that, “ The ways of God are not like the ways of humans. R. Berekiah said in the name of R. Levi, ‘We cut with a knife and heal our wounds with a bandage, but the Holy One, blessed be God, heals with the very thing with which God wounds,’ as the S’fat Emet writes,” the wound itself is the healing.”
This puts our misfortunes, or what we interpret as our misfortunes, in a new light. The Midrash seems to be saying that everything that happens to us occurs ultimately to bring us closer to God: the proverbial carrot and the stick applied alternately to nudge us along the path of greater awareness, greater understanding, and greater harmony with the Divine Energy. We are thus healed alternately with nearness and distance. The nearness gives us a taste of joy: the joy of unselfish giving and of swimming in the love of God and our fellow human beings. The distance makes us long again for that lost love and allows us to be alone with our thoughts and feelings, gathering up new energies, repenting for past mistakes, making new resolutions about our choices and our conduct. It is as if we are prevented from standing still for very long on our spiritual paths. Just as we become comfortable with our surroundings, we are thrust forward, and find ourselves in uncharted territory which demands from us, a new response.
Dr. Ruth Westheimer has written, in her book about sexuality in the Jewish tradition, “One of the biggest hurdles in therapy is for the patient to learn how to confront a shattered or tarnished past, the sins of yesterday. This is not to suggest that anything goes, but, as the Book of Ruth teaches, that everything passes, becomes transformed. Dust turns to diamonds, water to wine – this is a tradition as concerned with the forgiven as with the forbidden.” That we are continually forgiven allows us to move forward. By our wounds, by our picking ourselves up from our falls, we are climbing higher. Sometimes I think that we are hanging onto a rope of life and someone is pulling us along, faster than we expect, faster than it is comfortable for us to travel.
Verse 15:31 from Metzora reads, You shall separate the children of Israel from their impurity. This is the meaning of the positive and negative episodes in our lives. This is what the Divine Presence demands that we do: to purify ourselves so that we can bring greater purity and harmony into the world. One of the Chassidic rabbis pointed out that the Hebrew world for separate, in the passage I mentioned, zayrut, comes from the world, zarah, or foreign. The separation from God and each other we sometimes feel, is foreign to us, because we are from God, and attached to God, simply by our existence. The harmony we yearn for we are truly approaching, dialectically, as in a spiral, alternating both Divine wounding and Divine healing. It is our human way to learn from our mistakes, and it is God’s Divine way to inexorably and ultimately bring us closer. May each of us come to see this pattern more clearly, so that we can learn that which is being taught to us, and grow toward God.

Teaching Love

This week’s Torah portion is Tazria, which means, conceives. It speaks about a person’s state of ritual contamination and their subsequent purification: from childbirth, from skin rashes and skin disease, from burns, and also contains instructions about the contamination of clothing from mold and fungus.
At the beginning of the portion there is a puzzling section which speaks about the difference between the birth of a male child and the birth of a female child. The mother of a male is impure, for ritual purposes, for 7 days. For a female birth, the duration is 14 days. Then the mother is said to remain in the blood of her purity for 33 days for a male child and 66 days for a female child. Afterwards, the mother is instructed to bring a sin offering and an elevation offering to God.
Most of our Torah commentary was written in pre-scientific times, when the function of menstruation and bleeding in women was not well understood. So there is a great opportunity for modern and enlightened commentary on such a seemingly sexist part of the Torah. As with the Kosher laws, the intent of this section cannot be primarily about health, although health issues undoubtedly play a role. It is necessary and good for a mother to be able to rest after a birth and not be obligated to appear at the synagogue; or, in those times, to bring sacrifices to God. Rabbi D.Z. Hoffman has written that a mother should normally be considered ritually impure: that is: exempt from participating in ritual worship, for 14 days, but the Torah allows a mother to be ritually pure for a male sooner than 14 days, so that she can participate in her son’s Bris.
But what could “remaining in the blood of her purity” 33 days for a male versus the 66 days for a female be about? And shouldn’t the Torah read, the days of her impurity? If she is impure for 7 or 14 days, and then pure, what is this special time of purity about? Why should it be set aside? The time a new mother spends with her infant goes by in a blur: feedings, changing and dressing the baby, but mostly, holding, reassuring, and loving the child. And this, I believe, is the crux of what the Torah is teaching us. Erich Fromm, who studied Talmud and Torah, writes in his famous book, The Art of Loving, that love is something that can be taught. This is precisely what a mother does: she loves her baby and in so doing, teaches her child how to love; how to be a human being who knows how to love and can give it and receive it.
The difference between how a male was valued in ancient society versus how a female was valued may be a clue as to why the mother was allotted more time with her daughter. I say, allotted, because the phrase, “dwelling in the blood of her purity,” has a mystical ring to it, as if it is a special gift from God. In the Women’s Torah Commentary, Rabbi Helaine Ettinger quotes a Yiddish torah Commentary, Tzena Urena, as relating the state of a new mother to the state of a mourner, in that both are in an emotionally vulnerable state. They are dwelling in purity because their emotional state is, for the mourner, wholly dedicated to the memory of the deceased, and in the heart of the mother, wholly dedicated to the baby; and they are for that reason, freed from many obligations. A new Mother is vulnerable: tired, frequently in pain, and yet entrusted by God to perform one of the most important acts a person can do: teach another human being about caring, about compassion, about reliability, about acceptance, and about love. Perhaps the male child, at that time in history, would have received a tremendous outpouring of acceptance and affirmation by his parents and relatives, certainly by the greater society. But what of the female child? She is given twice as long to bond with her mother: 66 days; to learn how to love and be loved, possibly because the society would not have valued her as highly, but also, possibly because it will be she - this female baby - who will be entrusted with teaching the next generation how to love. Love, we feel, is terribly important, but it’s sometimes difficult to articulate why. If we feel unloved, we are miserable, lonely, feeling abandoned. But also, love as a skill, enables us to draw closer to God and experience the blessings that God has created for us. Love is truly the spiritual currency of the Universe. By learning love from our parents, we enlarge our loving circle to encompass other family members, friends, lovers or spouses, perhaps children, and finally, members of the community. We are also urged, in the V’ahavta, to love God, and in Kedoshim, to love our neighbors as ourselves. There is truly nothing else that the Torah can teach us. The love our mothers taught us is vital to our being able to function happily in this world. Learning how to love is so important, so precious and so vital to our well being that God has mandated a special time for mothers to teach it and babies to learn it. If we have learned it well, we can bring God’s blessings to others and to ourselves. If we have never been taught it, or taught it imperfectly, we can heal ourselves by giving unconditionally to others that which we ourselves needed but never received. Erich Fromm wrote: “Love is an act of faith. Whoever is of little faith is also of little love” May the love we give increase well being and blessing in the world, healing us, healing our relationship with God and with each other.

Becoming Experts

This week’s Torah portion is Shemini, which means 8th. It is the midpoint of the Torah, both in the numbers of letters and the numbers of words contained therein. During the previous 7 days the priests had undergone a process of purification and atonement to prepare them for this 8th day, the beginning of the sacrificial service and the beginning of the priests taking up their official duties. According to the Torah, the priests offered the sacrifices, and God provided the fire, causing the people to sing songs of praise and prostrate themselves before God. On that day, Aaron’s two eldest sons brought an incense offering that was not commanded by God, and they died. Aaron was not allowed to mourn their deaths on such a solemn occasion, and later, there was a disagreement about whether or not Aaron should eat the sacrifice, as Moses had instructed him. God also commanded the priests to drink no wine before any offerings. At the end of the portion, the laws of Kashrut: animals which are permitted and prohibited as food, is set forth, laws that accustom us to limiting our appetites and to obeying God.
In a sense, much of the portion revolves around discriminating what we may eat and when: the sacrifices, the wine, and the animals that are allowed to us. At the end of the portion, there is a sentence of summation, which reads, “this is the law of the animal, the bird, every living creature that swarms in the waters and for every creature that creeps on the ground, for distinguishing between the impure and the pure, and between the creature that may be eaten, and the creature that may not be eaten.” Rashi comments on this verse. He says, does it need to say that we must be able to distinguish between a donkey and a cow and a deer. Rather, he says, that we are being instructed that we should become experts for ourselves. This is a wonderful teaching.
The portion tells us about Nadav and Abihu, Aaron’s sons, who died because they did not distinguish for themselves what was the right thing to do. In the Psalms (75) it says, God is the Judge. God is the judge of others. We are the judge of ourselves. So often, we have this backward. The gift of consciousness that God bestowed upon humankind means that we have tremendous powers for judging and discrimination: for selecting what we like and what we don’t like. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the original Lubavitcher Rabbi, taught, “This is what humans are all about: this is the purpose of the creation of people and the creation of all the worlds, sublime and lowly: to make for God a dwelling in the physical world.” So the question arises, how do we use the gift of discrimination, well and wisely? What is the true purpose of this gift? When we judge others, selecting what we like and recognizing in other what we don’t like or can’t tolerate in ourselves, we misuse the power of discrimination. But used to judge ourselves, this power of separating the good form the bad, the holy from the profane, and pure from the impure, is the highest faculty we possess. In the first Torah portion, B’reisheet, it says, “Now man has become like the unique one among us, knowing good from evil.” Not only are we like God in this respect, but this gift is the one that can bring us closest to a reconnection with the Divine Source, repairing the disconnection we experience in our souls as loss, yearning, and incompleteness, which is really our distance from God.
Moses’ controversy with his brother, Aaron, about whether Aaron should eat the sacrifice, points up the role of reason and intention guiding us on the path to holiness. Moses asks Aaron’s sons why they have not eaten the offering, as they were told to do. Aaron replies that, after such things as the death of his sons, would it be proper to eat the sacrifice and would God approve? Aaron’s ability to reason, and to choose for himself what would be right, allowed him to use the gift of discrimination in the service of the holy. The questions that we can ask ourselves are, what actions can make me a holier person. What thoughts can make me better? What opportunities have been provided to me to help me to become more loving and more compassionate? This type of distinguishing for ourselves is holy work. It is the very best use of our gifts and of our solitude. The very middle of the Torah in its number of words, falls just where Moses is asking Aaron’s sons about eating the sacrifices. The Torah says that Moses insistently inquired, Darosh Darash, about them. It is the same word from which the word Midrash is derived. This is precisely our task: Our sages said that the entire Torah revolves around constant inquiry. We must insistently inquire of ourselves, asking, what is good, what is the loving thing that I can do, what is charitable and how can I help, what will lead me to holiness? May each of us consecrate the powers and gifts we have in service to that which is highest in ourselves, becoming experts for ourselves, doing good, and serving God; and may we be helped in this endeavor.

When God Calls

This week’s Torah portion is Yayikra, the first portion in the book of Leviticus. Vayikra means, and he called. God calls to Moses and instructs him about the sacrifices which will be offered in the new Tabernacle. These are: the elevation offering, to uplift us; the peace offering, to share celebrations and good fortune with others, and the sin and guilt offerings, for atonement and forgiveness.
The book of Leviticus begins curiously. The Torah reads, “and he called to Moses and God spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting.” This is the only time in the Torah when God is said to call to Moses. Why does God first call and then speak? Also, the word, Vayikra, and he called, ends in a miniature aleph, a letter printed smaller than usual. It is a hint that we must look closer here to see if there is meaning hidden or embedded in the text. Some of our Torah commentators have written that the small aleph means that God called to Moses softly. This interpretation reminds me of a quotation from Albert Einstein who said, “subtle is the Lord,” a quotation that was also used as the title for a well known biography of Einstein. In our text, the small aleph is like someone who whispers. The whisperer calls to us to pay attention to something that ordinarily may not be noticed. And this is actually characteristic of the way that God does contact us. We are contacted by the events in our lives: a chance meeting, a surprising phone call, a coincidence, seeing something that others are not seeing, or even the chance to perform a mitzvah: the opportunity to help someone that comes only to you.
Einstein, the exemplar of the ability of science to make the world understandable, was not a deeply religious man; but he did believe in God. So it is ironic that our strong belief in science confers upon us a kind of spiritual cynicism that prevents us from receiving the messages that we are sent, disguised as the events in our lives. How do we know that these events are really messages? The S’fat Emet writes that we come to hear – to be able to hear, through doing. That is – the more we take advantage of the opportunities we have to perform a mitzvah – to help and to bring goodness into the world, the more we are able to interpret the events of our lives and see that there is a holy dimension in them. Our lives then become so interesting: like a scavenger hunt in which the clues continually present themselves, when we least expect them, leading us not only to a higher spiritual place, but also to the knowledge that there is a mind and a heart directing this scavenger hunt who is aware of our personal existence. This is having a relationship with God: That knowing and feeling that God knows about me and is sending me ways to improve, grow, and gain understanding. If I know that God knows that I know: this is an authentic relationship.
Our Torah commentators suggest a few reasons why God calls to Moses softly. Perhaps it was to reassure Moses: that God was there when Moses needed reassurance. Perhaps it was in order to encourage him, letting Moses know that all his efforts were appreciated and that he was doing a good job, doing what was right. And finally, perhaps it was to speak tenderly to Moses, letting him know that the love we are capable of, comes from the Eternal One who loves and who teaches us to love. The small aleph in Vayikra stands for so much: for noticing the mundane and from it being able to intuit the holy; for the quiet intimations of God’s continual presence. It also stands, according to the Riziner Rebbe, for the idea of God contracting the Divine Presence; allowing infinite Divinity to become small enough to speak one-on-one with a human being, and conversely, according to the Rimanover Rebbe, for a teaching that we should be humble before the Divine Presence; humble enough to admit our own faults and “strive toward a higher spiritual level,” Aleph, as the first letter in the alphabet, also stands for taking the first small step when God calls. Our patriarchs had an answer when God called to them. It was “Hineni,” meaning, Here I am. I am here, I am present for you, Eternal God. I have heard your calling to me. Just reassure me, encourage me, and speak to me tenderly. Just tell me what you want me to do and I will do it with a willing and loving heart.
May each of us be aware when God calls to us, and may our answer to God always be Hineni: I am ready to do the loving deeds it is my privileg to be able to accomplish.

Shabbat Across America and Beyond

In his book, The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschl retells the legend that “at the time when God was giving the Torah to Israel, God said to them: My children! If you accept the Torah and observe my mitzvot, I will give you for all eternity a thing most precious that I have in my possession. And what, asked Israel, is that precious thing which You will give us if we obey Your Torah? The World to Come. Show us in this world an example of the World to Come. The Sabbath is an example of the World to Come.” Our sages, dating back even before the Talmud was written, said that Shabbat is a taste of eternity, a small island in which we sample the World to Come. On Shabbat we allow ourselves to experience rest and peace, joy and harmony; setting aside the labor of the week, allowing ourselves to stop creating and just be.
On the day of Shabbat we can contemplate the possibility of the messianic age, the time when people will be reconciled with each other. We can imagine a world in which there is no war, one in which people are so spiritually advanced that conflict melts away in the face of our love for each other and our recognition that our Divine souls link us to one another and to God. This vision of a future time, a better time, is one in which there is true cooperation and interdependence. In which what is good for you is also good for me. This is the way the world is supposed to work. I create blessing for you and me. You create blessing for me and you. No one prevents the Divine flow of blessings from coming to themselves or others. Rather than each ego pitted against every other ego, there is a recognition that there is enough for all: a human family working together, as this week’s Torah portion , Pekudei describes: each person bringing a freewill offering; each person contributing labor, materials, or talent to the efforts of the community in building the Holy Tabernacle.
The National Jewish Outreach Program, by creating Shabbat across America has created a holy tabernacle that spreads the shelter of Sabbath peace over all the Jewish people of North America. It has made one small gesture in harmonizing our Jewish family; helping us to recognize that, whatever our different perspectives, we are all playing a part in coming together tonight to celebrate Shabbat. For one evening, we are one in purpose, tasting the harmony and peace of the world to come. A cynic can say this is too small a gesture to really matter. But, in truth, each instance of loving co-existence is real: it is its own island of harmony, and creates its own energies of blessing, giving us hope when we realize how much good we are capable of bringing forth. Creating harmony starts small. It comes from each of our hearts and proceeds outward in larger and larger concentric circles of goodwill. This is what we come here to remember: that if there is the possibility of a messianic time of peace, surely God and we have dreamed it together and will create it together.

Leadership for Ourselves: Ki Tissa

Moses had been up on the mountain speaking to God for such a long time that the people despaired of his ever returning. To placate the Israelites, Aaron, who had been left in charge, fashions a golden calf from their jewelry – not to replace God, but to replace Moses. God tells Moses that the people have turned to idolatry and declares “And now desist from me. Let my anger flare up against them and I shall annihilate them and I shall make you a great nation.” Moses intercedes for the people and convinces God to forgive the Israelites. He argues with God, saying that the Israelites are God’s own people; that the Egyptians would say that God meant to kill them, further, he argues that it would harm God’s reputation; and he also pleads with God to remember the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Although Moses remains calm and clearheaded on the mountain, once he is again down among the people, in his anger, he shatters the tablets containing the 10 Commandments. Later,the Torah tells us, “Moses saw the people, that it was exposed, for Aaron had exposed them to disgrace among those who rise up against them.” Rashi uses the word, uncovered, rather than exposed. Here we have two different leaders: two styles of leadership and two different outcomes. Aaron has avoided an uprising, buying time until Moses’ return, by acceding to the people’s wishes. Moses has pleaded for the people to God but when he returns to them, he demonstrates that they have rendered the covenant worthless by breaking the tablets. He precipitates a bloodbath in which 3.000 people die, who had sinned against God by instigating and participating in idolatry.
One style of leadership is laid back, peace seeking, almost passive. The other is active, decisive, in accordance with strict justice. Aaron’s style of leadership attracts us. Moses’ style repels us. Several questions come to mind: How could Moses be so different on the mountain and down among the people? And also, why did God let Moses change the course of events? It seems to me that there is more going on in the interchange between God and Moses than a simple offer and refusal. When God asks Moses to leave so that God can destroy the people, God is accomplishing two things. First, God is testing Moses and finding out the answers to certain important questions: How big is Moses’ ego? Will he allow the people to be killed? Will he go for becoming the father of a great nation? How much does Moses care about the people? Can he handle the job of leadership, even if it becomes much more difficult than originally thought? Does Moses love the people as much as God, their creator? Is he up to the hard choices that must be made by a true leader? All of these questions Moses answers satisfactorily by putting the people ahead of himself. He passes the test.
The second thing God accomplishes is that Moses takes responsibility for choosing to lead the people from this point on. Moses consciously takes upon himself the leadership role, willingly and without reservation, in a way that he did not freely do before. The going will get very rough down the road and God is now sure that Moses will be with him all the way. Moses has emerged as a true leader in this exchange.
And how does all of this relate to us? The models of leadership in this portion can be seen as a metaphor for the leadership we provide for the spiritual development of our own souls. The late 19th Century poet William Ernest Henley wrote, “I am the captain of my soul, the master of my fate.” We are leaders in our own small Universe. Our actions determine our future. God is always testing us: how big are our egos? Are they small enough to make room for the needs and feelings and plights of others? Are we so full of ourselves that there is no room for God? Conversely, are our egos strong enough to make the tough choices that will point us toward spiritual growth or, like Aaron, will we take the easy way out, letting the flow take over. Are we ethically vigilant or morally lazy, complacent or actively standing up for what is right? Do we protect ourselves from the negative consequences of our actions or leave ourselves exposed to unhappiness through our choices and our unwillingness to lead ourselves to greater goodness?
We can provide holy leadership, excellent leadership for our souls. Each day there is an opportunity to choose to make a decision that will allow us to advance or set us back along our personal spiritual paths. Each choice is reinforcing. As Pirkei Avot, Chapters of the Ancestors, from the Talmud, famously tells us, one mitzvah leads to another, one sin leads to another. Each choice sends a message to God and the universe, which respond to our choices. The intention to lead ourselves: to go forward, with integrity and compassion, is a life changing intention. It has great value and power. When Moses came down from the mountain with the second set of tablets, his face was glowing with spiritual light. May each of us provide true leadership for ourselves, leading us toward the inner light; allowing us to feel spiritual joy, experience spiritual understanding, and the closeness of God’s Presence.

This week’s Torah portion is Terumah, which means a voluntary portion or contribution. It also means to separate or lift up. God instructs Moses about the design for the building of a holy sanctuary. The Torah says, “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. ” (Ex. 25:8) God tells Moses to ask the people to contribute the materials with which to build a portable sanctuary to accompany them in their travels through the wilderness. After the revelation, the giving of the Ten Commandments, the people will have a place to draw near to God. It marks the beginning of Jewish ritual, a substitute for the direct love and devotion of the Revelation, an answer for the longing felt by the Israelites after their peak experience of being in God’s Presence.
The first Torah portion in Genesis, B’reisheet, speaks about this longing. The parable of Adam and Eve eating from the tree of Knowlege in the Garden of Eden describes humanity receiving consciousness. With consciousness comes a realization of our separateness from each other and our separation from God. The expulsion from the Garden can be seen as a metaphoric way of describing our longing: the hole each of us has in our hearts because of our separation from wholeness; our separation from union with God. It is simply part of the human condition to have this longing. A feeling that things used to be better, that we used to be smarter or more complete.
We are told by our society to satisfy this longing with money, by buying things, by eating well, living well, and of course, by sexual gratification. We are urged to find the perfect person who can satisfy all our needs and desires. But these methods of addressing our longings are fundamentally mistaken, since the longing is partly, and perhaps mostly - spiritual, and they cannot be satisfied permanently by any one person or by sensual pleasures alone.
In Exodus, God gave the Israelites a way to find their way back to union with God. The S’fat Emet comments on the verse from Song of Songs, I am dark but beautiful (I:5). This speaks of our duality, a human body whose desires may be wayward, and whose actions may be mundane, but whose soul is glorious. The giving of the Torah with its commandments, urging us to use our energies for goodness and righteousness, gives us a plan by which we can be guided by the longings of our souls and not by the needs of our bodies.
The sanctuary that was created by the Israelites was many things: a community building exercise, a make work project for people with nothing to occupy themselves, a labor of love, a place to sacrifice, a place to gather. It was not the place of God’s dwelling, but rather a symbol of God’s Presence among them. Right at the start, it served a symbolic function.
There is a beautiful commentary in Jewish tradition that the building of the sanctuary describes an inner task and not only an outer edifice. Chassidic rabbis like Malbin taught that each one of us is to build a sanctuary for God in our own hearts; or to put it another way, to separate a little bit of our hearts for God. Just as coming to this synagogue on Shabbat brings balance to the week, so building a tabernacle in the heart balances us as people: it balances the acquisitiveness in the messages we are sent from the larger society and legitimizes the promptings of our souls. Making for ourselves an inward temple is not merely a metaphor. It is conscious inner work without which no spiritual growth is possible. Setting aside part of ourselves, lifting that part up, to the grade of the holy, reestablishes our connection to God by enlisting our emotions to make the connection tangible and real. Just as we experience longing as feeling, so too, we can experience our union with God in feeling: feeling happy within ourselves, contented with the great blessings God bestows upon us, and guided by the unseen hand that causes our lives to work out and gives us new spiritual opportunities each day. Giving the voluntary gift of ourselves is truly all that we have to give. A tangible, physical gift is but an outward expression of the love from within. May we separate a part of ourselves, lifting ourselves up, higher than we are, higher than we believe ourselves capable of being, to give this gift of ourselves, in love, to God. As we give to God, we also become more capable of giving and receiving love from others. Through our giving, may we be blessed by the turning of our human longing into the realization of our connection with the Divine, the source of all life and being.

Knit a stitch, rip it out
knit three, rip one
create with the bestowal of a kiss
destroy with the unkind word
knit – a visit to the sick
rip – anger in the belly
hatred…I forgot!
knit and knit and try to stop
the tearing out –
the thoughts unceasingly

when it’s over
will I have a garment to put on?
will I be clothed in a robe of light
or go naked?

Sharing Noah's Pudding

This week’s Torah portion is Mishpatim, which means laws. It contains rules for civil society concerning injury, negligence, and business practices. It also regulates behavior between people in society: those at the same levels and those at different levels. Specifically, the Torah prohibits wronging a stranger, a widow, an orphan, or the poor. There are rules that differentiate between behavior that is morally right and behavior that is ethically wrong. We’re taught that it’s wrong to be involved in spreading rumors, lying, showing favoritism, taking bribes or siding with others to do what is wrong. It is morally right to help people, even enemies; to give to those who are less fortunate, materially and emotionally.
It is fitting to speak about Mishpatim tonight, an evening when we welcome a representative of our Muslim brothers and sisters, a member of the Interfaith Dialog Center, which is sponsored by the Turkish Cultural Center of the Republic of Turkey. He has brought us the gift of Noah’s Pudding, a special dessert commemorating God’s protection of Noah and his family at the landing of the ark; and also, God’s rescue of Moses and the Israelites at the Sea of Reeds. It is the Muslim custom to make Noah’s Pudding or Ashura, a dessert comprised of grain, beans, nuts, and dried fruit, sweetened with sugar; and to bring it to neighbors, giving the gift of nourishment, sharing good feelings and love among all people. The constituents in the dessert are a metaphor for multiculturalism: the inclusion of many different foods, stirred and cooked together, reminding us of the many different peoples and religions of the world. Each ingredient adds to the others, enriching the taste and aroma of this confection.
The events that the sharing of Noah’s pudding asks us to remember are two instances of giving: God giving human beings renewed life, love, and liberty through Noah and again after the Exodus from Egypt, through Moses. Psalm 82 says, “you are Godlike beings, all of you: children of the Most High.” In this psalm and in a verse from Mishpatim which says, “you shall be people of holiness to me,” we are asked to model God’s behavior: to imitate God by giving.
It is an outstanding attribute of God that God accepts and receives all people. No one is ever excluded from God’s Presence. And yet, it is an outstanding characteristic of religion that certain people and groups are habitually excluded. If religion is supposed to represent God, how can this be? We are taught, God is near to all who call upon the Eternal in truth. So the exclusion we experience must come from us, and not from God. As children of the Most High, people of potential holiness, there is love in our hearts. But we must also take responsibility for and recognize the hatred that is also there. The hatred comes from within us. It is one of many inner voices that sees the Other: those who are different, and responds by excluding them. We are filled with love and courage, but also with hatred and fear.
Rabbi Arthur Green, in a comment about a passage by the S’fat Emet, remarks that the way to God is through peace. This echoes another teaching by Reb Moshe Lieb of Sassov, who says, “Do you wish to know whether what you are dong is right? Ask yourself whether it brings you closer to others. If it does not, then you are moving in the wrong direction, you are moving away from God.” Through sharing, kindness, acceptance, and giving, we moderate our feelings toward those who are different, learning about them; overcoming our natural timidity and fear, creating bonds of understanding and friendship. The vision we have of a better world is a world of giving: a society in which we make no distinctions between the US and the Them. Then each of us can move toward God and holiness, becoming a doorway through which God’s blessings can pass. Deeds of sharing form a connection between us and God. The spiritual universe is set up so that more for you becomes more for both of us, because we are all part of each other: we are all part of the ONE. Even the smallest actions: the bringing of Noah’s Pudding to us, who are the Other, the stranger; the spirit with which we welcome our Muslim neighbors, creates the flow of God’s blessings to all of us. Then we touch what is deepest in our souls, the inherent Godliness that we share, that of being children of the Most High.

Yitro 2008 This week’s Torah Portion is Yitro or Jethro, the name of Moses’ Father in Law. Jethro comes to Moses and the Israelites, after hearing about the splitting of the Sea of Reeds. Jethro advises Moses to set up a court system. Then God instructs Moses to ask the people whether they will accept God’s Laws. The Israelites will be treasured by God. They will be a kingdom of priests and a Holy Nation. The people, to their credit assent. They prepare and sanctify themselves for 3 days and, in the words of this portion, “Moses brought the people forth toward God.” to hear the 10 declarations, or rather, the 10 commandments. The event that we call the revelation, involves us on many different levels. We are drawn in as spectators, as believers or disbelievers, and we are drawn in because, as we are told in Deuteronomy, the covenant made at the revelation was made with those present and also with us, with those not present.
The event can be seen as the culmination of all Israelite history up until that point: as the reason for God choosing Abraham, inspiring Isaac with awe, reassuring Jacob, blessing Joseph, and taking the Israelites out of Egypt. It was in order that God’s laws become known and that God become known among humankind, that the revelation came to be. Until the revelation, God was the One who chose to be in relation to several special people, to the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, helping and guiding them. After the revelation there was a fundamental shift. The 10 commandments gave us the power to be in relation to God, at our own choosing. In effect, we chose then to be able to choose now. The 10 Commandments and the decrees that follow answer the question, “How can I relate to God?” The 10 Commandments and the ethical mitzvot are a toolbox filled with tools for building a relationship with God.
In the musical, My Fair Lady, Eliza sings to Freddy, the young man courting her, “Don’t talk of stars burning above, if you’re in love, Show me!” This is what God is waiting for: the acts that show God that we want to be in relationship with the Divine. As Abraham Joshua Heschl writes, “Revelation lasted a moment. Revelation was the beginning. Acceptance continues.” Our acceptance of the Ten Commandments can only be shown by the use we make of them. In a sense, there are over 200 tools in the toolbox, the other 400 odd commandments being for the Levites and concern sacrifice. The first 10 mitzvot are the most important, the ones we depend on to build our relationship with God. Each commandment is an instrument by which we can effect a change in our relationship with God, for the better, or for the worse. The 10 commandments are timeless and Divine: Unlike every human code of law, never changed or improved upon in over 3,000 years. Devised just for us; tailor made by the One who knows us and who created us. They are the baseline: the minimum we are expected to keep: the ones that we are deemed able to keep as opposed to one like, “Love you neighbor as yourself”: a commandment that we will never reach but are expected to strive toward. There are really only nine commandments: Don’t Covet, Don’t lie in court, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery, don’t murder, honor your parents, remember the Sabbath, don’t say God’s name in vain, don’t worship idols. The 10th commandment, really the first, God exists, is phrased this way: “I am God, your God, who has taken you out of the land of Egypt from the House of Bondage.” This is the God of our history, not just an abstract God, but a real force in our collective memory and in the puzzle of our existence. Anyone who wishes to know God and have a relationship with the God of our history: with the Divine Presence, has the means by which to do so. When Moses led the people toward God, they left the familiar and entered the unknown: a miraculous present in which contact with the Divine became reality. The Jewish spiritual path leads to that reality, a true means of contact whose steps are endorsed by God, having been given to us by God. It is open to any of us who desire God’s presence in our lives. The tools are there: to leave the familiar and enter a place where knowledge of the Divine is possible, taking hesitant steps toward the holy. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi taught, “this is what humans are all about: this is the purpose of God’s creations: to make for God a dwelling in the physical world.” Those that choose to walk along this path choose not only great blessing and happiness for themselves, but also the joy of helping God in the fulfillment of the Divine Plan: the realization of the vision of a nation of priests; a holy nation, and we hope, a holy world.