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.