This week’s Torah portion is Va’eira, which means and He appeared. God speaks to Moses about the meaning of God’s name, which is a form of the verb To Be, meaning, Being, Existence, and: future, past, and present. God makes five promises to Moses, describing a marvelous redemption. God commands Moses to speak to Pharaoh and command Pharaoh regarding the Israelites’ release, saying that God will harden Pharaoh’s heart. Then the Portion describes the inter-action between Moses and Pharaoh through the first seven plagues. At the outset of this portion, God tells Moses that God will make Pharaoh’s heart strong, so that all the signs and wonders, what we call the ten plagues, will be manifested to show the Egyptians and the Israelites that there is one God, and not many.
God uses the word Aksheh for hardening of the heart. But then this word is not used again. The hardening of the heart is mentioned ten more times in this portion. Five times the word Chazak is used, the same word we say when we finish a book of the torah, Chazak. And five times the word caveyd is used. This word caveyd usually means heavy, which opens for us a psychological interpretation of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. God first uses this word. The text says, Pharaoh made his heart heavy. Then it says that each time Pharaoh made his heart heavy, it became strong or strengthened. In our language, the opposite of heavy is light and the opposite of hard is soft.
We would all like to be lighthearted and softhearted rather than heavy hearted: not miserable but happy. This portion tells us that there is so much that we can do within ourselves to promote our happiness. I once read an article in the health section of the NY Times that cited research to the effect that each of us seems to have a set point of emotional equilibrium to which we usually return. Some of us are lighthearted and optimistic by nature. Some of us are worriers and more pessimistic. The events of our lives may nudge us into the other camp for a while, but then we tend to return to our habitual world view. The Torah seems to be telling us that Pharaoh inflicted his worrying and his unhappiness on himself and those around him.
We know this to be psychologically true. Usually people who are mean and difficult are unhappy. Pharaoh’s own inner darkness made others miserable and prevented him from seeing the light that was available to him. In Proverbs, King Solomon says, for the commandment is a lamp and the Torah is light. One meaning of this verse is that it is only through the guidance of the Torah that we can understand life. Pharaoh had Moses, Aaron, and the ten plagues to show him what was real and what was illusion.
We need Torah to be able to see reality clearly; life as it truly is, and not how it appears. The S’fat Emet wrote, “All the Patriarchs’ efforts were for the sake of the Children of Israel. The Patriarchs went into all the hidden places within nature, struggling until…they found the light of holiness…It is by sanctifying oneself in this worldly matters that you attain some bit of understanding.” This light, this power, this understanding is available to us. May we seek it with light and loving hearts, keeping our hearts open to each other, cultivating our happiness by finding the good in life, and may the joy of the Sabbath help us to find our own hidden light.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
Our Treaty With God
This week’s Torah portion, the first portion in the Book of Exodus, is Shemot, which means, Names. It is about the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, Pharaoh’s decree to drown every male Israelite baby, the birth of Moses, his exile in Midian; his call by God at the burning bush and his eventual return to Egypt to carry out God’s plan for him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
As Moses, his wife Zipporah, and their two sons are traveling to Egypt to confront Pharaoh, there is a puzzling section which reads: “When he was on the way at the inn, God encountered him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and touched it to his feet, and she said, ‘a bridegroom of blood are you to me.’ So He loosened his hold on him; then she said, A bridegroom of blood you are, because of the circumcision” (Ex. 4:24-26). It is puzzling because we don’t really know who God wanted to kill and what exactly happened: whether Moses became ill or had an accident. We do know that Moses was not eager to shoulder the task of returning to Egypt to secure the Israelites’ release.
He finds five excuses as he answers God, so as not to have to accept the challenge. First he is excessively and perhaps evasively humble; next he asks who he should say is sending him; then he maintains that the Israelites will not believe him; then he says he is not a good speaker; and finally he grudgingly gives in without much enthusiasm and possibly a little bit of attitude. No wonder God was displeased. Moses and Zipporah show radically different orientations toward doing the right thing. Whereas Moses is hesitant, Zipporah is decisive. The Talmud says that Zipporah was “distinguished by her deeds” (Moed Katan 16b). In fact, all of the six women in this portion are decisive. The midwives, Shifrah and Puah refuse to kill Israelite baby boys, in the first recorded act of civil disobedience. Yocheved, Moses’ mother, puts Moses in a basket among the reeds of the River. Pharaoh’s daughter saves Moses. Young Miriam courageously steps forward to help the Princess and her baby brother.
It is interesting that circumcision is the mechanism by which Moses’ life and mission are restored. The Talmud comments in another place, “Great is circumcision, for it counterbalances all the [other] precepts of the Torah, as it is written, For after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel” (Nedarim 32a). The midrash also says, …she recognized the great protective power of circumcision, … She said: ‘How great is the power of circumcision! My husband was deserving of death for having been tardy in the performance of the command of circumcision, and but for that he would not have been saved.’ (Shemot Rabba V:8)
If we think about what circumcision is really all about, perhaps this section can become a little clearer. Circumcision is not about the act itself; it’s only the sign of the bond between God and each parent who circumcises a child. Later it is the sign of the bond between the child and God as well. When God commanded Abraham to become circumcised, it was about mutual acceptance and mutual responsibility. In another telling passage, after the giving of the Ten Commandments later in Exodus, the Torah says “And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you concerning all these words”(Ex. 24: 8). Hence there is an ancient tradition of using blood to make a treaty; and circumcision is a treaty.
Zipporah evidently understood that she needed to reestablish the bond between God and Moses. She describes Moses as a bridegroom of blood: that the bond between God and Moses is as strong as their marriage bond. So what can we take away from this story? Perhaps it is telling us what not to do. Excessive humility or perhaps false humility is not helpful. Reluctance is a hindrance to right action. Laziness is a poor excuse to avoid making correct choices. If we are asked to help, we can’t turn away as if it’s not our problem. We are asked to be willing to serve, to do the right thing. Zipporah knew that after the circumcision she would have to share her husband with God and God’s mission. She would also be sharing him with all the Israelites. And perhaps this is another teaching: that every relationship is a triad. God is present in every human interaction, showing us what is right. God wanted Moses to say “Hineni”: here I am, ready to serve. As in a marriage, God wanted Moses’ mind and heart. This covenant includes us too and demands no less. God wants our minds and willing, open hearts. God needs our contributions and our labor in working for and helping each other. We are dignified by these tasks and finally, honored by God, in giving to us this sacred bond with Divinity.
As Moses, his wife Zipporah, and their two sons are traveling to Egypt to confront Pharaoh, there is a puzzling section which reads: “When he was on the way at the inn, God encountered him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and touched it to his feet, and she said, ‘a bridegroom of blood are you to me.’ So He loosened his hold on him; then she said, A bridegroom of blood you are, because of the circumcision” (Ex. 4:24-26). It is puzzling because we don’t really know who God wanted to kill and what exactly happened: whether Moses became ill or had an accident. We do know that Moses was not eager to shoulder the task of returning to Egypt to secure the Israelites’ release.
He finds five excuses as he answers God, so as not to have to accept the challenge. First he is excessively and perhaps evasively humble; next he asks who he should say is sending him; then he maintains that the Israelites will not believe him; then he says he is not a good speaker; and finally he grudgingly gives in without much enthusiasm and possibly a little bit of attitude. No wonder God was displeased. Moses and Zipporah show radically different orientations toward doing the right thing. Whereas Moses is hesitant, Zipporah is decisive. The Talmud says that Zipporah was “distinguished by her deeds” (Moed Katan 16b). In fact, all of the six women in this portion are decisive. The midwives, Shifrah and Puah refuse to kill Israelite baby boys, in the first recorded act of civil disobedience. Yocheved, Moses’ mother, puts Moses in a basket among the reeds of the River. Pharaoh’s daughter saves Moses. Young Miriam courageously steps forward to help the Princess and her baby brother.
It is interesting that circumcision is the mechanism by which Moses’ life and mission are restored. The Talmud comments in another place, “Great is circumcision, for it counterbalances all the [other] precepts of the Torah, as it is written, For after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel” (Nedarim 32a). The midrash also says, …she recognized the great protective power of circumcision, … She said: ‘How great is the power of circumcision! My husband was deserving of death for having been tardy in the performance of the command of circumcision, and but for that he would not have been saved.’ (Shemot Rabba V:8)
If we think about what circumcision is really all about, perhaps this section can become a little clearer. Circumcision is not about the act itself; it’s only the sign of the bond between God and each parent who circumcises a child. Later it is the sign of the bond between the child and God as well. When God commanded Abraham to become circumcised, it was about mutual acceptance and mutual responsibility. In another telling passage, after the giving of the Ten Commandments later in Exodus, the Torah says “And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you concerning all these words”(Ex. 24: 8). Hence there is an ancient tradition of using blood to make a treaty; and circumcision is a treaty.
Zipporah evidently understood that she needed to reestablish the bond between God and Moses. She describes Moses as a bridegroom of blood: that the bond between God and Moses is as strong as their marriage bond. So what can we take away from this story? Perhaps it is telling us what not to do. Excessive humility or perhaps false humility is not helpful. Reluctance is a hindrance to right action. Laziness is a poor excuse to avoid making correct choices. If we are asked to help, we can’t turn away as if it’s not our problem. We are asked to be willing to serve, to do the right thing. Zipporah knew that after the circumcision she would have to share her husband with God and God’s mission. She would also be sharing him with all the Israelites. And perhaps this is another teaching: that every relationship is a triad. God is present in every human interaction, showing us what is right. God wanted Moses to say “Hineni”: here I am, ready to serve. As in a marriage, God wanted Moses’ mind and heart. This covenant includes us too and demands no less. God wants our minds and willing, open hearts. God needs our contributions and our labor in working for and helping each other. We are dignified by these tasks and finally, honored by God, in giving to us this sacred bond with Divinity.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Our Family Tradition
This week’s Torah portion is Vayechi, which means, and he lived. Jacob is about to die. He calls his son Joseph, Viceroy of Egypt, to give him final instructions about Jacob’s burial in Canaan. He adopts Joseph’s sons, Menashe and Ephraim, as his own. Later, just before he passes away, he blesses each of his 12 sons and dies quietly and peacefully, a very good death. His sons bury him and then become worried that Joseph will seek revenge for their plans to sell him over 30 years ago. Joseph forgives them completely. Later, as Joseph dies, the book of Genesis comes to a close.
The section of this portion I’d like to consider tonight is toward the beginning, where Jacob has called Joseph to speak with him. The Torah reads: “Jacob said to Joseph, El Shaddai had appeared to me in Luz in the land of Canaan and God blessed me. God said to me, Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous and I will make you a congregation of peoples, and I will give this land to your offspring after you as an eternal holding.”(Gen. 48:3-4) In the next verse, Jacob adopts Joseph’s sons. Why is Jacob speaking to Joseph about God appearing to him? What relevance does it have to the adoption?
To answer these questions, it’s interesting to speculate about the stories told in this family. God appeared to Abraham at least six times; to Sarah and to Rebecca at least once; to Isaac more than once; and to Jacob at least twice, and perhaps four times. There was a family tradition that a personal relationship between God and man could be a normal, or at least a periodic, occurrence. Were these experiences regularly spoken about within the family? I imagine they were. What might God have wanted the members of this very special family to internalize from these stories? When Jacob speaks to Joseph, perhaps one thing Jacob wanted Joseph to do was to carry forward the personal relationship between God and human beings into the next generation of his family.
This possibility of a close relationship with God is something that we need the Torah to inform us of. Without the Torah, this possibly might not be known. We might also ask: what kind of person might Jacob have been without God’s direct and personal intervention? He began life as a manipulative person, not content with what he had, but wanting what others possessed. He had a lack of integrity and ran away from conflicts. After God’s guidance: the dream of the ladder reaching to heaven, the 20 years spent learning patience and much else from Laban’s negative example, the wrestling match with the angel; Jacob emerges as someone with great personal integrity, who faces up to confrontations; one who forgives and is grateful for what he has, valuing all his personal relationships and having learned from his and his family‘s mistakes. His closeness to God was vital to his becoming the Patriarch we revere and from whom we are descended.
There are teachings here for us as well. Like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob; like Moses and all the many prophets, many more than 20, like the Baal Shem Tov and many of the Rebbes who came after him in the 18th & 19th Centuries – this personal relationship with God is available to each of us. And further: God cares about each of us as God cared about Jacob. Our development, like his, is being directed, so that we can continue to grow in goodness, as he did. Jacob says to Joseph earlier in the portion: “do kindness and truth, chesed v’emet, with me.” These are our two main subject areas: kindness and truth.
Our Divine Teacher, our Divine Parent cares about us passionately; directs our studies and desires us to be in this personal relationship with God, as Moses says in Deuteronomy, for our benefit. As the secular year draws to a close and the new year begins, may we strengthen this relationship with God by applying ourselves to the study of these subjects, knowing that Goodness is working with us, as Rabbi Gelberman once wrote, on our behalf, to bring about a better us, a better year, and a better world. This is what Jacob wanted Joseph to remember and to actualize. This is our task too: to bring forth and maintain our closeness to God, which is after all, not only our birthright, but our family tradition.
The section of this portion I’d like to consider tonight is toward the beginning, where Jacob has called Joseph to speak with him. The Torah reads: “Jacob said to Joseph, El Shaddai had appeared to me in Luz in the land of Canaan and God blessed me. God said to me, Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous and I will make you a congregation of peoples, and I will give this land to your offspring after you as an eternal holding.”(Gen. 48:3-4) In the next verse, Jacob adopts Joseph’s sons. Why is Jacob speaking to Joseph about God appearing to him? What relevance does it have to the adoption?
To answer these questions, it’s interesting to speculate about the stories told in this family. God appeared to Abraham at least six times; to Sarah and to Rebecca at least once; to Isaac more than once; and to Jacob at least twice, and perhaps four times. There was a family tradition that a personal relationship between God and man could be a normal, or at least a periodic, occurrence. Were these experiences regularly spoken about within the family? I imagine they were. What might God have wanted the members of this very special family to internalize from these stories? When Jacob speaks to Joseph, perhaps one thing Jacob wanted Joseph to do was to carry forward the personal relationship between God and human beings into the next generation of his family.
This possibility of a close relationship with God is something that we need the Torah to inform us of. Without the Torah, this possibly might not be known. We might also ask: what kind of person might Jacob have been without God’s direct and personal intervention? He began life as a manipulative person, not content with what he had, but wanting what others possessed. He had a lack of integrity and ran away from conflicts. After God’s guidance: the dream of the ladder reaching to heaven, the 20 years spent learning patience and much else from Laban’s negative example, the wrestling match with the angel; Jacob emerges as someone with great personal integrity, who faces up to confrontations; one who forgives and is grateful for what he has, valuing all his personal relationships and having learned from his and his family‘s mistakes. His closeness to God was vital to his becoming the Patriarch we revere and from whom we are descended.
There are teachings here for us as well. Like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob; like Moses and all the many prophets, many more than 20, like the Baal Shem Tov and many of the Rebbes who came after him in the 18th & 19th Centuries – this personal relationship with God is available to each of us. And further: God cares about each of us as God cared about Jacob. Our development, like his, is being directed, so that we can continue to grow in goodness, as he did. Jacob says to Joseph earlier in the portion: “do kindness and truth, chesed v’emet, with me.” These are our two main subject areas: kindness and truth.
Our Divine Teacher, our Divine Parent cares about us passionately; directs our studies and desires us to be in this personal relationship with God, as Moses says in Deuteronomy, for our benefit. As the secular year draws to a close and the new year begins, may we strengthen this relationship with God by applying ourselves to the study of these subjects, knowing that Goodness is working with us, as Rabbi Gelberman once wrote, on our behalf, to bring about a better us, a better year, and a better world. This is what Jacob wanted Joseph to remember and to actualize. This is our task too: to bring forth and maintain our closeness to God, which is after all, not only our birthright, but our family tradition.
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