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.

Bo

This week’s Torah Portion, Bo, which means, Come, begins with God telling Moses to go back to Pharaoh to warn him about three more plagues, with which God will strike Egypt: the plague of locusts, of darkness, and the killing of the first born. As God predicted that Pharaoh’s heart has been made stubborn, Pharaoh refuses to allow the people to leave Egypt to perform a sacrifice to God, with disastrous results. God gives Moses instructions about the Pesach offering: how the Israelites must sacrifice, eat, and be ready to leave, and how the eating of Matzos and the celebration of the Pesach miracle must be remembered as an eternal decree. The people do as they are instructed and, as God foretold, Pharaoh sends them out and they begin their journey out of Egypt.

This Torah portion is remarkable for its story and its drama, It is a tale with which we are intimately familiar, and yet, in it is contained an amazing guide that is hidden in plain sight. This torah portion is a virtual Primer of the natural laws of the spiritual universe. In this portion, God tells us how the universe works vis a vis humans. It tells us how to behave, what to pay attention to, and how to relate to God.

The first natural law of the spiritual universe comes from the very beginning of the Portion. God said to Moses, “Come to Pharaoh; for I have made his heart and the heart of his servants stubborn, so that I shall place these signs of Mine in his midst; and so that you may relate in the ears of your children and your children’s children that I have toyed with Egypt, that you may know that I am God.” Spiritual Law # 1 is that God is active in human affairs. Maimonides, in his Guide for the Perplexed, remarks that the way we know God is through acts, or to put it another way, through Nature. That God altered Nature by performing the plagues is a demonstration of this Law. It accounts for large deviations from the expected, as well as the small coincidences that comprise our everyday lives.

The second law comes from the very same verse. This law is that God accomplishes many ends from one act. By sending plagues, signs, and wonders, God showed Pharaoh the limits to Pharaoh’s might, allowed the Egyptians to understand that there was a power higher than Pharaoh, and at the same time, gave the Israelites the experiences that would sustain them in the wilderness with faith in God’s existence and omnipotence. Our sage Nachmanides wrote that the plagues were sent because God wanted the Israelites to experience the truth about God and to refute false ideas. It was as much for the Israelites as for Egypt that the power of the plagues had to be experienced.

The third law comes from the third verse: “Moses and Aaron say to Pharaoh, So said Adonai, God of the Hebrews: Until when will you refuse to be humbled before me?” Our 3^rd law is that God wishes us to be humble before our Creator; to bend our wills to God’s will and to do what is asked of us. This sounds like a small thing, but in reality, it is one of the last things most of us can accomplish. In Numbers, it says that Moses was humble or meek. This was meant not only as description, but as a very high compliment. Usually, our egos do not permit us to be so humble.

The Fourth Law of the spiritual universe is found in the very next sentence: “for if you refuse to send out my people, Behold: I shall send a locust swarm into your border.” “This sentence confirms the principle of reward and punishment. This law is more real than we would like to admit, and our failure to recognize that the good we do increases good in the world and the anger and hatred with which we sometimes act comes back to us as well, is the source of much unhappiness.

The Fifth Law comes a few verses later (7). The Torah reads: “Pharaoh’s servants said to him, How long will this be a snare for us? Send out the men that they may serve God, their God. Do you not know that Egypt is lost?” This verse tells us that there is almost always a warning before something bad happens. In Exodus (21), in the Civil Legislation section, it is made clear that a warning needs to be given before an animal who is habitually belligerent is put to death. In Exodus, God makes sure that Pharaoh is warned before the plagues occur. So too, we usually experience a discreet warning, if we are paying attention, before disaster strikes, and our failure to heed warnings around us sometimes makes us wish we had listened before a negative event comes to pass.

The sixth Law of the spiritual universe is that our participation is required. Something is asked of us, and we must respond, in order to reap the benefits of that which God sets in motion. This law is established by the verse, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel, saying, on the 10^th of the month they shall take for themselves a lamb or Kid for each household.” The Torah then gives instructions for the Pesach offering, the blood to be applied to the lintel and doorposts, the roasting of the offering, the meal, and the preparations for departure. We are required to take action by doing those things that are commanded, by being in partnership with God. The “with God” of the previous sentence is the key to this law. We must do what we can when we can. We are not passive witnesses. We must act.

The last law, is the 7^th, fittingly, for in Judaism, seven is a momentous number. The seventh law is that the lessons we learn in life occur to allow us to grow in knowledge and wisdom. This law comes from the verse, (12:14) “This day shall be for you a remembrance and you shall celebrate it as a festival for God for your generations, … as an eternal statute.” And also the verse, “It is a pesach offering to God who skipped over the houses of the Children of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but he saved our households.” We are meant to remember, and in that remembering to gain understanding that once, long ago, God chose to allow us to know with certainty, that we are not alone; that there is one who knows; there is one who cares; and that we, by our conduct, can experience an intimation of God’s presence in our lives. Ken y’hi ratson. May we all be so blessed, to experience the divine in our modern lives. May this be God’s will.

This week's Torah portion, Bo, contains a coded guide to the spiritual laws of the universe. One of the laws is: there is almost always a warning before something bad happens.

One-ness

The Shema, the prayer of God's one-ness is really a prayer of OUR one-ness.

Spiritual Currency

Love is the spiritual currency of the universe. When I act out of love, I "mint" new currency, and allow an expansion in the "money supply" that is available in the universe. When more currency is in circulation, more blessings can flow to everyone.

El Shaddai and the Feminine

This week’s Torah portion is Va-eira, which means, and God appeared. It tells about God’s promise to redeem the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and relates the unfolding of the first seven plagues in response to Pharaoh’s intransigence. The portion begins with God saying to Moses, I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but with my name, yud hei vav hei, I did not make myself known to them. The name El Shaddai is sometimes translated as God Almighty, but it really means something quite different. El means God but Shaddai comes from the word, Dai, as in Dayenu. It means enough or sufficient. El Shaddai means God who provides sufficiently for us: in other words, God the nurturer. This role of nurturer or provider is further reinforced by another meaning of Shaddai: from the word Shadayim, or breasts. God is the Mother who feeds us, takes care of us, and provides for all our needs.
If this is so, why, we might ask, does the Torah have such a patriarchal feel, and so many masculine pronouns for God. Our confusion comes from our need to read the Torah literally, and this can be a big mistake. We are gendered. We have bodies for reproduction that are gendered and in the words of our sages, the Torah speaks in the language of human beings. We are male and female: God is not. We have arms and legs, and eyes and ears: God does not. When the Torah says, God-He: it is no more a reference to God being male than when it says, “If I have found favor in your eyes,” being a proof that God has eyes. These are metaphors. The former is a sign of respect. The latter is simply a manner of conveying an idea. We know this; our Torah commentators, such as Maimonides and Rashi emphasize it, but we forget.
We should not be particularly surprised either, by the preponderance of male names in the Torah if we can remember the society of the time the Torah was written down, or even consider the status of women in the Arab countries of the Middle East today. The Torah lays out laws of slavery, but this does not offend us as much as the Torah’s neglect of women because we have fought the battle over slavery, won it, and the struggle is behind us. But we are still in the midst of the struggle for equality between women and men in the labor force and in society, so the inequality still smarts. Also, many passages have been interpreted to the disadvantage of women in the past, but in many instances, a pro-feminine interpretation is also supported by the text.
But there is a deeper level on which the messages of El Shaddai and yud hei vav hei resonate. El Shaddai can be seen as the bearer of feminine energy in the world. Feminine and masculine energies were postulated by the psychologist Carl Jung. Every person combines feminine as well as masculine energies. When God manifests the Divine Presence to Moses later in Exodus, God describes the Divine personality as: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abundant in kindness and truth, full of forgiveness, and who cleanses. These can be seen as the feminine values: relatedness, compassion or rachamim, which comes from the Hebrew word, rechem, or womb: the flow of blessings which cannot ever be the exclusive purview of either male or female, but which we humans identify with the Mother: softness, gentleness, receptivity, sustenance. What the Torah can be seen to be saying in Genesis is that God has come to balance the masculine energies of logic, strength, rationality, action, and exertion with the feminine energies of El Shaddai’s nature: compassion, emotion, nurturing. In this week’s Torah portion, Pharaoh exhibits the imbalance of an excess of masculine energies: the hardening of the heart rather than its softening. But God tells Moses a secret: that God is not only El Shaddai, the bearer of feminine energy, but that God is all Being. Being: existence, as the totality of every energy, must exhibit harmony: a blending of the complementary energies; and this is also what has erupted in Judaism every so often in our history, when the forces of logic, scholasticism, and hierarchy have held too much sway. It is at these times that the tradition of Kabbalah: the mystical counterpart to logical Judaism has gained in importance and emphasis. This is made explicit in the personification of God’s Presence by the Shechinah, the female aspect of God described by much Kabbalistic writing. The feminine aspect of God is said to be in exile and must be reunited with the male aspect of God, which will bring about the harmony of all being. In his book, Femininity Lost and Regained, Dr. Robert Johnson maintains that, in a psychological sense, parables about the mating of female and male produce consciousness. On a spiritual level, much more than consciousness results. Each wave of Jewish spirituality has brought with it a little more feminine energy: a little more relatedness, inclusiveness, and acceptance. This is what is happening again in our time. The values of El Shaddai, God of Compassion, are being reasserted in our society and in Judaism: witness the burgeoning interest in meditation and kabbalah in the wider human family. The values of El Shaddai are being reasserted as we come to grips with a smaller, more inclusive world: a world of brothers and sisters who share the environment of the earth, share information, and share the universal truths in all religions. In short: a world where we have to get along. The more we can bring the feminine values of El Shaddai into our lives, into our interactions, and into our world, the more harmony and Godliness we will create. We must not allow todays’s Pharoahs to dictate the values of society or to let Goethe’s ideal of the eternal feminine to remain a vision. Our collective survival depends on our ability to bring harmony to our world.