This week’s Torah portion is Toldot, which means offspring or generations. It tells of Isaac and Rebecca’s family and the birth of Rebecca’s twins, Jacob and Esau; there is Esau’s selling his birthright to Jacob, Isaac digging wells of water, God renewing the promises of many descendants and the land to Isaac, and Jacob’s stealing the blessing of his father, meant for Esau. Esau was born first, covered in red hair. The name Esau comes from the verb ASA, to do or to make, and Esau was also a do-er: a man of action. Rashi said everyone called him Esau because he was fully made, completed. He was done.
Jacob was born second, grasping Esau’s heel, and he was named Yaakov, heel, or that which follows. The Torah gives a brief description of the two boys: Esau became one who knows trapping, a man of the field; and Jacob was a quiet man, abiding in tents. Not all translations say quiet. Rashi says wholesome. Another translation is mild. But the Hebrew says, Tam. Tam literally means finished, perfect, complete whole, innocent, or simple. It is the same word used for the Simple Son in the section of the Passover Hagaddah that tells of the four children, or historically, the four sons. We can see that Jacob and Esau were very different, but that each was complete in his own way. In a sense, they make up complete person when their attributes are combined: the outer qualities of Esau and the inner qualities of Jacob.
This is what makes Jacob so much more interesting than Esau. Jacob is far from perfect: he schemes, he cheats, he lies, he tricks, he steals. There are depths to Jacob. Esau may be finished, but Jacob, like us, is perfectable. Jacob had all the inner resources he needed to become a holy person. And that he actually gets there should give us great hope for ourselves. What sets Jacob so far above Esau is that he is willing to grow. The S’fat Emet comments on a later verse in this portion: “And Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found living waters (Gen. 26:19).” He says that “the Torah is called water because it’s found everywhere; and as is true with seeking water, it depends on how deep one wishes to dig, and how sincerely one wants to have Torah.”
Jacob was always trying to catch up with his slightly older brother. He shows his desire to overcome his younger brother status, but also his deep desire to be a leader, when he impersonates Esau to receive the blessing of the firstborn; his desire to be a person of goodness when he dreams of the ladder reaching to heaven and vows to give to charity and establish a house of God, and finally a desire to be a blessing when he wrestles with the angel and leaves behind the deceptive nature he no longer needs. Jacob’s striving to best Esau never stopped. His inner growth allows Jacob finally to surpass his brother.
We are all meant to be a work in progress. We are never finished. Our desire to grow and to rise toward holiness and our willing-ness to do the inner work we need to do will determine how far we can travel along the road that leads to the Divine. As Jacob found out, we are not alone on this journey. We receive help and support along God’s path. May we know that we have been given great spiritual potential for goodness and for Godliness, and may we strive like Jacob, to use these gifts, by being willing to learn and willing to grow.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Lessons of Hurricane Sandy
At this time of great difficulty for so many in NY, NJ, and CT, we look at the Torah with different eyes, trying to find light in the darkness, whether your darkness is physical or metaphoric, hoping to find warmth in the cold, and praying for heat and hot water in all your apartments. One lesson in this week’s portion comes from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. An obvious thing to take from it is that there was a reason for the destruction. People were choosing the wrong things, from a moral standpoint.
For us, we know that our choices, environmentally speaking, haven’t always been great, but they haven’t been terrible either. Humans began by burning wood for warmth. Then we moved on to coal, then oil and gas. Possibly our worst choice is bio-fuels, in which not only oil and gas, in the form of farm machinery & pesticides, but also good farmland is used to produce grain, which, by using even more oil and gas, is turned into ethanol, which is then burned. Hurricane Sandy sent a message to the seat of financial power. The climate is changing because we have changed it. Our choices weren’t bad. Perhaps we have been a little self-indulgent, energy-wise. Our choices weren’t necessarily wrong: we had to heat our homes and, for those who live outside a large city, drive to a place of employment. Admittedly, we have taken the lazy way out. Some have become used to making the easy money. We have not planned for the future or supported research and development leading to new forms of energy. We can now see that the old choices are no longer good ones. They don’t work anymore. God, or if you like, the Universe, is asking us to move on. This happens to us in every aspect of life. We are asked to choose a new way. The new way we must choose is very simple to state, but will be challenging to implement. We have to let the sun power our world. We can’t burn things anymore. The sun’s energy powers the wind and the waves. We can use wind and wave power, solar power, and renewable hydroelectric power if we decide to put our minds to it. We’ll figure out the storage issues. We may even figure out nuclear fusion (fission is too dangerous and too radioactively polluting). We could even use the millions of feet walking along New York City’s sidewalks for part of our power needs.
There is one more lesson from Vayera that I’d like to address. It’s about caring. The Torah says, referring to Abraham, And he lifted his eyes and looked, and three men stood by him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed to the ground, And said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, pass not away, from your servant; Let a little water, be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree; And I will fetch a morsel of bread, to comfort your hearts; after that you shall pass on; seeing that you have come to your servant. And they said, do so, as you have said. And Abraham hurried to the tent to Sarah, and said, Hurry, three measures of fine meal, knead, and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it to a young man; who hurried to prepare it. And he took cream and milk, and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood over them by the tree, and they ate.(18:2-8)
Abraham truly cared about the three travelers who appeared at his door. He hurried to help them, to feed them, to show them courtesy and respect, and to give them his very best. He didn’t know they were angels until later. The phrase, “He stood over them,” is interesting and quite telling. Angels receive their orders from God. One understanding of angels is that they are simply energies, in any form, sent to accomplish certain acts. When a caring, generous impulse comes from us, and when we act upon it, we stand above the angels. That’s the gift that dwells within free will. Abraham honored the Godliness in the angels before he knew them to be Divine. He tried to help them and care for them simply because he thought they were human. May all the love and generosity we show to each other during these trying times be noticed and blessed. May we be even more sincerely caring than we have been before. The Chassidic masters taught: the path to God leads through men. May we help each other in our time of need, acting as angels for each other, and being even higher than that: people who care, standing heads and shoulders above the angels.
For us, we know that our choices, environmentally speaking, haven’t always been great, but they haven’t been terrible either. Humans began by burning wood for warmth. Then we moved on to coal, then oil and gas. Possibly our worst choice is bio-fuels, in which not only oil and gas, in the form of farm machinery & pesticides, but also good farmland is used to produce grain, which, by using even more oil and gas, is turned into ethanol, which is then burned. Hurricane Sandy sent a message to the seat of financial power. The climate is changing because we have changed it. Our choices weren’t bad. Perhaps we have been a little self-indulgent, energy-wise. Our choices weren’t necessarily wrong: we had to heat our homes and, for those who live outside a large city, drive to a place of employment. Admittedly, we have taken the lazy way out. Some have become used to making the easy money. We have not planned for the future or supported research and development leading to new forms of energy. We can now see that the old choices are no longer good ones. They don’t work anymore. God, or if you like, the Universe, is asking us to move on. This happens to us in every aspect of life. We are asked to choose a new way. The new way we must choose is very simple to state, but will be challenging to implement. We have to let the sun power our world. We can’t burn things anymore. The sun’s energy powers the wind and the waves. We can use wind and wave power, solar power, and renewable hydroelectric power if we decide to put our minds to it. We’ll figure out the storage issues. We may even figure out nuclear fusion (fission is too dangerous and too radioactively polluting). We could even use the millions of feet walking along New York City’s sidewalks for part of our power needs.
There is one more lesson from Vayera that I’d like to address. It’s about caring. The Torah says, referring to Abraham, And he lifted his eyes and looked, and three men stood by him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed to the ground, And said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, pass not away, from your servant; Let a little water, be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree; And I will fetch a morsel of bread, to comfort your hearts; after that you shall pass on; seeing that you have come to your servant. And they said, do so, as you have said. And Abraham hurried to the tent to Sarah, and said, Hurry, three measures of fine meal, knead, and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it to a young man; who hurried to prepare it. And he took cream and milk, and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood over them by the tree, and they ate.(18:2-8)
Abraham truly cared about the three travelers who appeared at his door. He hurried to help them, to feed them, to show them courtesy and respect, and to give them his very best. He didn’t know they were angels until later. The phrase, “He stood over them,” is interesting and quite telling. Angels receive their orders from God. One understanding of angels is that they are simply energies, in any form, sent to accomplish certain acts. When a caring, generous impulse comes from us, and when we act upon it, we stand above the angels. That’s the gift that dwells within free will. Abraham honored the Godliness in the angels before he knew them to be Divine. He tried to help them and care for them simply because he thought they were human. May all the love and generosity we show to each other during these trying times be noticed and blessed. May we be even more sincerely caring than we have been before. The Chassidic masters taught: the path to God leads through men. May we help each other in our time of need, acting as angels for each other, and being even higher than that: people who care, standing heads and shoulders above the angels.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Take the First Step
This week’s Torah portion is Lech Lecha, which means, go for yourself. God speaks to Abraham for the very first time, with the offer of great blessing, if Abraham will follow God, leaving his native land to journey to Canaan in order to establish a new nation there. Abraham does so and God promises him the land four separate times in this portion. At the end of Lech lecha, God makes a covenant with Abraham: every male will be circumcised at the age of 8 days. Abraham, 13 year old Ishmael, who is Abraham’s son with Hagar, the maidservant, and all the men in Abraham’s employ become circumcised.
Just what is this covenant all about? We hear so much about the covenant, but what exactly is it? A covenant is usually an agreement between two people. Each party has an obligation. Abraham has two obligations: to accept God for himself, his household, and for all the generations that will follow, and to circumcise himself and all the males in his household, as a sign of that acceptance. God takes on three obligations: to give Abraham offspring, who will become great nations, to give him the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession, and to be a God to Abraham and his offspring forever. God had great faith in Abraham, knowing that Abraham would not only agree to the terms of the treaty, but that he would complete all the circumcisions on that very same day, acting with that admirable quality that Moshe Chaim Luzzato called alacrity, in his famous work, Path of the Just. Rashi, our famous Torah Commentator, taught us similarly, do not delay a mitzvah (Bo).
Abraham had such a difficult thing to do. There is a haftarah that we read in the spring in conjunction with the book of Leviticus, about doing something difficult. Naaman, Captain of the army of the king of Aram, was a leper. The Prophet Elisha, told him how to cure his leprosy: requiring him to bathe 7X in the Jordan. Naaman became enraged at the ridiculousness of the suggestion; and his servants came near, and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much rather then, when he said to you, Wash, and be clean (2 kings Chapter 5)? It is so much easier for most of us, to accept the covenant and to circumcise, not usually ourselves, but our children than to do what Abraham did.
But what does the Torah mean in the beginning of this section, when God said to Abraham, “Walk before me and be perfect”? We have to remember that Sara did not conceive Isaac until after the circumcision. Walk before me then means that God is saying to Abraham, I will follow you. I will be watching you and I will come after you. Please take the first action, otherwise, I can’t do anything. Your action will be completed by me. I follow your lead. Are we then leading God? Of course not. The Eternal One is our Divine teacher: showing us which way to go. God points the way. We must decide whether to go there. The covenant has been accepted for us because it simply is an enduring truth that all existence is One. And yet, it is up to us to act, taking upon ourselves the obligations of the covenant in every choice we make. May we know that our Divine Guide is both in front of us as well as following us, and may we, like Abraham, find great blessings by walking forward on the path that leads to kindness, generosity, compassion and love.
Just what is this covenant all about? We hear so much about the covenant, but what exactly is it? A covenant is usually an agreement between two people. Each party has an obligation. Abraham has two obligations: to accept God for himself, his household, and for all the generations that will follow, and to circumcise himself and all the males in his household, as a sign of that acceptance. God takes on three obligations: to give Abraham offspring, who will become great nations, to give him the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession, and to be a God to Abraham and his offspring forever. God had great faith in Abraham, knowing that Abraham would not only agree to the terms of the treaty, but that he would complete all the circumcisions on that very same day, acting with that admirable quality that Moshe Chaim Luzzato called alacrity, in his famous work, Path of the Just. Rashi, our famous Torah Commentator, taught us similarly, do not delay a mitzvah (Bo).
Abraham had such a difficult thing to do. There is a haftarah that we read in the spring in conjunction with the book of Leviticus, about doing something difficult. Naaman, Captain of the army of the king of Aram, was a leper. The Prophet Elisha, told him how to cure his leprosy: requiring him to bathe 7X in the Jordan. Naaman became enraged at the ridiculousness of the suggestion; and his servants came near, and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much rather then, when he said to you, Wash, and be clean (2 kings Chapter 5)? It is so much easier for most of us, to accept the covenant and to circumcise, not usually ourselves, but our children than to do what Abraham did.
But what does the Torah mean in the beginning of this section, when God said to Abraham, “Walk before me and be perfect”? We have to remember that Sara did not conceive Isaac until after the circumcision. Walk before me then means that God is saying to Abraham, I will follow you. I will be watching you and I will come after you. Please take the first action, otherwise, I can’t do anything. Your action will be completed by me. I follow your lead. Are we then leading God? Of course not. The Eternal One is our Divine teacher: showing us which way to go. God points the way. We must decide whether to go there. The covenant has been accepted for us because it simply is an enduring truth that all existence is One. And yet, it is up to us to act, taking upon ourselves the obligations of the covenant in every choice we make. May we know that our Divine Guide is both in front of us as well as following us, and may we, like Abraham, find great blessings by walking forward on the path that leads to kindness, generosity, compassion and love.
Monday, October 22, 2012
In the Wake of the Flood from The Jewish Week
Or: Noah Explains it All
This week’s Torah Portion relates the story of 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. Later, God promises Noah never again to “smite every living being as I have done. Continuously, all the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. (Gen. 8:21-22),” This parable teaches us about how our world works and answers some of our most heart wrenching questions: why is the world so imperfect? Why are there disasters, disease, tragedies? Why do we have good days and bad days? Why will God never do this again? We may not like the answers, but this portion at least seeks to give us some insight into these questions.
Originally there was no disease and few natural disasters. We lived to unimaginably advanced ages: Methuseleh to 969 years and Noah to 950 years. There were no checks on human corruption. Sin piled up. The world became worse and worse. The system, which is all of a unity, could not sustain that amount of greed, untruth, rapaciousness, and crime. So God decided to sweep away the old system and put an entirely new, self-regulating system in place. In this new system the maximum life span would be 120 years. 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 person would be allowed to accumulate too much sin. Less worthy acts would be taken care of in the course of a life. God would constantly communicate with us through the positive and negative circumstances in our lives, letting us know the results of our actions. We would be able to take an honest look at our lives and know how we are doing because of the circle of choice and result that connects us to God: we do something good and experience blessing, or at the very least, good feelings from performing mitzvot. We miss the mark, do something less worthy, and are sent a correction.
But it’s not always so clear why negative things occur, or why terrible things happen to people who are virtuous. Rashi comments on the first verse (Gen 6:9) of the portion “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. However, as part of society, we bear responsibility for the acts of our community. We may ask: why in the story of the flood did so many have to perish? Why the animals and plants? The story teaches us that what we do affects everything else. A modern example is that the people who cut down trees are seldom those who contract Lyme disease. We are 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 way.
The sober and very adult message of Noah is that if the world were not the way it is: if there were not built-in corrections to human sin, life would be even worse. There would be no progress and we would experience hopelessness. Sin would pile up. Life would go in a negative direction. However there is good news in this tale: the Noah story teaches us not only how our world is constituted but also about our great power to create blessing. When we strive to do what is good, like Noah, 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 the sage S’fat Emet taught, it is up to us to broaden the good impulse within us for our own benefit and the benefit of the world. Our task is to pour the balm of love upon that which is wounded and to be of those who repair what is rent. God knows our intentions, sends us blessings, and allows us to live even when we fall down, judging us in mercy and helping us to improve. May we be worthy of the great power for good given to us, and the faith, dignity, and respect for us that has been accorded to us by the Source of Life. Our world is beautiful; and we have an enormous effect on our lives and also on the world. The system works in our favor: God wants to bless us. May we broaden the goodness and Godliness within us, and experience how much blessing we may create.
This week’s Torah Portion relates the story of 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. Later, God promises Noah never again to “smite every living being as I have done. Continuously, all the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. (Gen. 8:21-22),” This parable teaches us about how our world works and answers some of our most heart wrenching questions: why is the world so imperfect? Why are there disasters, disease, tragedies? Why do we have good days and bad days? Why will God never do this again? We may not like the answers, but this portion at least seeks to give us some insight into these questions.
Originally there was no disease and few natural disasters. We lived to unimaginably advanced ages: Methuseleh to 969 years and Noah to 950 years. There were no checks on human corruption. Sin piled up. The world became worse and worse. The system, which is all of a unity, could not sustain that amount of greed, untruth, rapaciousness, and crime. So God decided to sweep away the old system and put an entirely new, self-regulating system in place. In this new system the maximum life span would be 120 years. 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 person would be allowed to accumulate too much sin. Less worthy acts would be taken care of in the course of a life. God would constantly communicate with us through the positive and negative circumstances in our lives, letting us know the results of our actions. We would be able to take an honest look at our lives and know how we are doing because of the circle of choice and result that connects us to God: we do something good and experience blessing, or at the very least, good feelings from performing mitzvot. We miss the mark, do something less worthy, and are sent a correction.
But it’s not always so clear why negative things occur, or why terrible things happen to people who are virtuous. Rashi comments on the first verse (Gen 6:9) of the portion “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. However, as part of society, we bear responsibility for the acts of our community. We may ask: why in the story of the flood did so many have to perish? Why the animals and plants? The story teaches us that what we do affects everything else. A modern example is that the people who cut down trees are seldom those who contract Lyme disease. We are 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 way.
The sober and very adult message of Noah is that if the world were not the way it is: if there were not built-in corrections to human sin, life would be even worse. There would be no progress and we would experience hopelessness. Sin would pile up. Life would go in a negative direction. However there is good news in this tale: the Noah story teaches us not only how our world is constituted but also about our great power to create blessing. When we strive to do what is good, like Noah, 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 the sage S’fat Emet taught, it is up to us to broaden the good impulse within us for our own benefit and the benefit of the world. Our task is to pour the balm of love upon that which is wounded and to be of those who repair what is rent. God knows our intentions, sends us blessings, and allows us to live even when we fall down, judging us in mercy and helping us to improve. May we be worthy of the great power for good given to us, and the faith, dignity, and respect for us that has been accorded to us by the Source of Life. Our world is beautiful; and we have an enormous effect on our lives and also on the world. The system works in our favor: God wants to bless us. May we broaden the goodness and Godliness within us, and experience how much blessing we may create.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Bringing God and Judsiam into the 21st Century
On this Yom Kippur, we come here for a very special and mystical process, what the philosopher Martin Buber calls, the mysterious meeting of human repentance and Divine mercy. There is a dance – a partnership, and if so, there must be a partner. Who, exactly, is our partner and how do we regard that partner we call God? For us, two generations after the Holocaust, this is a large and difficult question. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach thought that perhaps the fascination with eastern religions in this country had to do with our anger at God over the Holocaust. He suggested that the Eastern religions were not similarly tainted.
The beginning of an answer to who our partner is must necessarily start from the information we have been given in the Torah. In the story of Cain and Abel, Cain kills his brother. If God were the vengeful, angry God some ascribe to the Bible, we would expect God to kill Cain. But that’s not what happens. God protects him and sends Cain off to learn. Then in the story of Noah, when corruption grew unbearable on the earth, we would expect that a vengeful, angry God’s reaction to human greed and rapaciousness would be anger. But the Torah says, “God had heartfelt sadness.”
To bring our conception of God into the 21st Century, we have to go beyond the anthropo-morphism and personification of the early Torah, the book of Genesis, and jump to the next book, Exodus, in which God says to Moses, by my name, the four letter name of God, yud, hei, vav, hei, the patriarchs did not know me. This name is a conjugation of the verb To Be, and it includes the letters for I was, I am, I will be: past, present, and future. God’s name means being. It means existence; and when God answers Moses’ question, what is your name, God says, I shall be is my name, accentuating the future. This means that God is the unfolding of life, the continuing creativity of each day. This is a way of understanding Divinity that is more modern. Rabbi David Cooper wrote a book titled, God is a Verb, and Rabbi Zalman Schacter Shalomi has written about God-ing, using God as a verb, not a noun; and this is in fact the way we first encounter God in the Torah: in the process of creating.
Some have asked, is God inside of us or outside? The answer necessarily is: both, or even: however you choose to regard the question. We all live within life; within being and existence. It is both within and without. How we contact the Divine Presence determines the way we regard it; and Judaism has always seen God as being paradoxically, within everything and above everything: immanent and transcendent. The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “I will put my law in their inward parts and in their heart I will write it, and I will be their God.” The book of Deuteronomy also puts it very tenderly: “for it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.” What these quotations tell us is that Law, teaching: Torah, is in us and God is in us, and also outside of us. We live in the matrix of it all, which is how this great Creating Oneness operates. Judaism gives us vital information about what works: why and how it works, how our actions affect the outcomes we observe in our lives and in the greater society: why not taking care of others causes us not to be taken care of. Why killing others causes our own dying and suffering. It is important for us if this vital information is to be operative in our lives, that we re-interpret God and Torah in our generation and for our modern understandings so that it can speak to us.
The concepts of reward and punishment are also ripe for re-interpretation. The God of punishment is an older world view. The Talmud repeatedly says, “The Torah speaks in the language of men.” (Avodah Zarah 27a). It speaks in the language of people at the time it was written, for their understanding, in that society. The Torah explains reward and punishment by saying, toward the end of Leviticus, “the same shall be done to you.” The stories in the book of Genesis impart this information over and over again. Abraham, the one who is a blessing, is blessed. Isaac, the one who makes peace, experiences tranquility. Jacob, the one who tricks, is tricked. The ones who separate, Rebecca and later Judah, are separated from those they love. Is there someone throwing lighting bolds at us, from the sky? Is life random? The Torah tells us that life is not random. There is not an angry, vengeful God in the sky waiting to punish us. Quite the opposite. We dig a hole and walk forward, into it. And there is Divine heartfelt sadness.
Did the Divine have to instruct us or make a covenant with us? Of course not. Why did the Source of Life do this: to give us this precious knowledge of what works and what does not work in our lives? Perhaps, as the sages tell us, because we are loved. Perhaps so that existence can flow in a positive direction, so things can become continually better. Perhaps, because we, as part of God, influence the contentment of the whole. Buber says that the covenantal relationship is based on destiny. As God said, it is all about the future. It is all about human knowledge and human choice. Since we are made of the Divine energy-matter continuum, we can bring our modern growing Universalism to the understanding of God and Judaism. It is difficult to be attracted to a Divinity we fear: one that is always disapproving of us or punishing us. But life, creativity, being: these ways of regarding Divinity that expand us and give us hope. Why does it matter what our conception of God is? Because we are asked to love God. This helps us make better choices. We can’t love a God we fear. But we can love life. We can love goodness; and in order to identify with that goodness, we have to conceive of a God we can love, who is not angry at us, who is on our side, rooting for us to make loving, caring choices: a Divine Parent, Source of all goodness in the Universe who we want to please. How do we act in consonance with life, how do we promote life?
These are skills we can acquire; skills that attract us, so that we want to acquire them. This information is actually in the Torah. This is a modern way to interact with Judaism. Life is good. The elevation of the spirit is good. Embracing the universality of the totality of Life is good. Judaism is an authentic spiritual path that shows us how to extend our innate goodness and expand our acceptance of all life. In this final day of turning, may we be open to the great goodness and love that we experience within and without: the love we express and the love we receive. May we turn to that goodness, as Jeremiah said, in our inward parts, in our hearts. May it guide us all year long, allowing us to use our powers of loving and choosing to promote life, promote goodness, and create blessing and happiness in the world.
The beginning of an answer to who our partner is must necessarily start from the information we have been given in the Torah. In the story of Cain and Abel, Cain kills his brother. If God were the vengeful, angry God some ascribe to the Bible, we would expect God to kill Cain. But that’s not what happens. God protects him and sends Cain off to learn. Then in the story of Noah, when corruption grew unbearable on the earth, we would expect that a vengeful, angry God’s reaction to human greed and rapaciousness would be anger. But the Torah says, “God had heartfelt sadness.”
To bring our conception of God into the 21st Century, we have to go beyond the anthropo-morphism and personification of the early Torah, the book of Genesis, and jump to the next book, Exodus, in which God says to Moses, by my name, the four letter name of God, yud, hei, vav, hei, the patriarchs did not know me. This name is a conjugation of the verb To Be, and it includes the letters for I was, I am, I will be: past, present, and future. God’s name means being. It means existence; and when God answers Moses’ question, what is your name, God says, I shall be is my name, accentuating the future. This means that God is the unfolding of life, the continuing creativity of each day. This is a way of understanding Divinity that is more modern. Rabbi David Cooper wrote a book titled, God is a Verb, and Rabbi Zalman Schacter Shalomi has written about God-ing, using God as a verb, not a noun; and this is in fact the way we first encounter God in the Torah: in the process of creating.
Some have asked, is God inside of us or outside? The answer necessarily is: both, or even: however you choose to regard the question. We all live within life; within being and existence. It is both within and without. How we contact the Divine Presence determines the way we regard it; and Judaism has always seen God as being paradoxically, within everything and above everything: immanent and transcendent. The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “I will put my law in their inward parts and in their heart I will write it, and I will be their God.” The book of Deuteronomy also puts it very tenderly: “for it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.” What these quotations tell us is that Law, teaching: Torah, is in us and God is in us, and also outside of us. We live in the matrix of it all, which is how this great Creating Oneness operates. Judaism gives us vital information about what works: why and how it works, how our actions affect the outcomes we observe in our lives and in the greater society: why not taking care of others causes us not to be taken care of. Why killing others causes our own dying and suffering. It is important for us if this vital information is to be operative in our lives, that we re-interpret God and Torah in our generation and for our modern understandings so that it can speak to us.
The concepts of reward and punishment are also ripe for re-interpretation. The God of punishment is an older world view. The Talmud repeatedly says, “The Torah speaks in the language of men.” (Avodah Zarah 27a). It speaks in the language of people at the time it was written, for their understanding, in that society. The Torah explains reward and punishment by saying, toward the end of Leviticus, “the same shall be done to you.” The stories in the book of Genesis impart this information over and over again. Abraham, the one who is a blessing, is blessed. Isaac, the one who makes peace, experiences tranquility. Jacob, the one who tricks, is tricked. The ones who separate, Rebecca and later Judah, are separated from those they love. Is there someone throwing lighting bolds at us, from the sky? Is life random? The Torah tells us that life is not random. There is not an angry, vengeful God in the sky waiting to punish us. Quite the opposite. We dig a hole and walk forward, into it. And there is Divine heartfelt sadness.
Did the Divine have to instruct us or make a covenant with us? Of course not. Why did the Source of Life do this: to give us this precious knowledge of what works and what does not work in our lives? Perhaps, as the sages tell us, because we are loved. Perhaps so that existence can flow in a positive direction, so things can become continually better. Perhaps, because we, as part of God, influence the contentment of the whole. Buber says that the covenantal relationship is based on destiny. As God said, it is all about the future. It is all about human knowledge and human choice. Since we are made of the Divine energy-matter continuum, we can bring our modern growing Universalism to the understanding of God and Judaism. It is difficult to be attracted to a Divinity we fear: one that is always disapproving of us or punishing us. But life, creativity, being: these ways of regarding Divinity that expand us and give us hope. Why does it matter what our conception of God is? Because we are asked to love God. This helps us make better choices. We can’t love a God we fear. But we can love life. We can love goodness; and in order to identify with that goodness, we have to conceive of a God we can love, who is not angry at us, who is on our side, rooting for us to make loving, caring choices: a Divine Parent, Source of all goodness in the Universe who we want to please. How do we act in consonance with life, how do we promote life?
These are skills we can acquire; skills that attract us, so that we want to acquire them. This information is actually in the Torah. This is a modern way to interact with Judaism. Life is good. The elevation of the spirit is good. Embracing the universality of the totality of Life is good. Judaism is an authentic spiritual path that shows us how to extend our innate goodness and expand our acceptance of all life. In this final day of turning, may we be open to the great goodness and love that we experience within and without: the love we express and the love we receive. May we turn to that goodness, as Jeremiah said, in our inward parts, in our hearts. May it guide us all year long, allowing us to use our powers of loving and choosing to promote life, promote goodness, and create blessing and happiness in the world.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Rosh Hashanah 2012
Today we will read in the Torah about the birth of Isaac to Abraham at 100 years old and Sarah at 90: a joyous and miraculous event. Then tomorrow we read the test of Abraham, the Akeda or Binding of Isaac, God’s asking of Abraham to bring his beloved Isaac up as a sacrifice, which Abraham does. An angel of God saves Isaac; and Abraham is blessed through his willingness to follow God whole-heartedly. There are many ways to understand this, and I’ve spoken previously about how much prior reassurance God had given to Abraham, the deep personal bond of trust between them, and the promise that Isaac would have many descendants. But this year I’ve come to also see another aspect of this story.
One way to understand it might be to see it through the prism of our life’s goals. As we gaze ahead into a busy fall and beyond we may have immediate to do lists for the week or month. We may also have things we’d really like to do: travel to a country we’ve never seen, study a new subject, or even just get through the next year without any major health crises for us and our families, being as decent a human being as we can be. You’ve all heard the line, Man plans and God laughs. Why is that? Why should it be that life is so shockingly unpredictable? I would like to suggest that it is because our goals, wants, and needs are so different from God’s goals for us. Speaking about wants is easy. We need food and shelter; and we need money to buy those things, so we need to work or to have worked so that the Divine Presence can help us provide and so that we can contribute to providing for others. We also need love, human interaction and connections, intellectual stimulation, and spiritual nourishment. My teacher of blessed memory, Rabbi Gelberman, once gave a talk about wants and needs. In it he quoted Martin Buber who said, “The difference between the Holy and the Unholy is that the Holy are waiting to be sanctified.” Buber wrote; “We are called to the world in order to hallow it, to redeem it. The world needs us for its hallowing. It is waiting to be hallowed by us// and in hallowed contact with the world, with the things and people we meet on the way, we find our way to God.” So it is not that we should not have material wants, as long as we make the distinction between what we need and what we would like. And we can sanctify what we receive and what we achieve.
Goals are more elusive to speak about. It’s easy to identify short term goals. But how many of us can articulate long term goals? You all know the famous joke: A man goes into the hospital for surgery. The operation is successful. The nurse comes in and says, Mr. Shapiro, "Are you comfortable?" he says, "I make a good living." That’s the middle or upper middle class ideal: a comfortable, peaceful life, earning enough to enjoy our existence here on earth and not having to worry. This is probably the opposite of what God wants for us. Being what I call a spiritual naturalist, someone like Charles Darwin who observes events and draws conclusions from observations, it appears to me that God is interested in our spiritual growth. We are not allowed to stay on one level or in one place for very long. It is obvious that the world is in need of great improvement. How is this going to happen? It can only happen if we are forced to grow, through a series of tests, challenges, opportunities, and acts of Divine Grace: both the carrot and the stick. Every day of our lives we are in Life University: a school from which we will never graduate until we leave this plane of existence. And what are we tested on in this school of life? Compassion, Kindness, generosity, selflessness, caring, humility, and love. This is our life’s course work. This is why life has so many tests and challenges. There is a clash between what we want and what God wants. The world can only improve if we improve. We want a peaceful, easy life. God wants growth. God wants action.
The S’fat Emet, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter of Ger, has written “We have already been on a very high rung [of spiritual attainment] on Mt. Sinai. Because of that we can raise ourselves back up to Heaven….From now on [there will be] a way to find everything by means of struggle, as it is said, your deeds will draw you near.” A life of spiritual struggle is therefore our lot, in order to be raised up, in order for the world to keep improving. This is why each person is precious to God: each human being has been given challenges in their personalities and life circumstances to struggle with. We are all one soul, there is only one life between us. Each person is precious because they are purifying their small bit of the soul matter for all of us. Our sages taught, angels can’t rise in holiness. Only human beings can become greater than they are. Similarly, in the Talmud, R. Abbahu, said: The place occupied by repentant sinners cannot be attained even by the completely righteous (Sanhedrin 99a). It is improvement that God notices and requires. That’s why we must not ever be completely satisfied with our level of goodness. Life will not allow us to stand still. Norman Mailer famously wrote: “There was that law of life so cruel and so just which demanded that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.”
In the book, Duties of the Heart, by Rabbi Bachya ben Paquda it says that Abraham understood the Torah before it was given. He was already a kind, gracious, generous, compassionate, loving person. Yet God still gave him a further test: the ultimate test: was his faith and trust in God’s goodness so great that he would offer up his own will, his own son, in love, knowing that there must be an explanation and a blessing beyond his comprehension? He did, and he was greatly blessed. There were no other tests for him that we know of. There could not possibly be any other major tests Abraham could be given. He had passed them all. Luckily, none of us are or ever will be at his spiritual level. Our tests are such that we can pass them. Our sages taught, no one is given a test he cannot pass.
In this New Year, we will have many tests, challenges, and opportunities for growth. How will we respond? Most probably, this is what will be asked of us: We will be asked to care about each other more; to be of help and service to each other; to be generous: to keep our hearts open and loving, to let go of any anger, hurt, or hatred and to teach by example. By being willing to grow in goodness and by participating in the goals God has for us, we can not only deepen our understanding of the events in our lives, but also experience all the goodness and joy of God’s great gifts to us. By doing good, we increase goodness in the world and experience that goodness. Buber teaches: “… rejoicing in the world, if we hallow it with our whole being, leads to rejoicing in God.” We are on a magnificent journey on the road that leads to holiness. Angels can only stand still but humankind can rise to unimagined heights, and God is leading us there. May all of us grow in goodness in this New Year, passing our tests, hallowing life, expressing our love and kindness, living joyously, and striving to be grateful and thankful for our continual unfolding.
One way to understand it might be to see it through the prism of our life’s goals. As we gaze ahead into a busy fall and beyond we may have immediate to do lists for the week or month. We may also have things we’d really like to do: travel to a country we’ve never seen, study a new subject, or even just get through the next year without any major health crises for us and our families, being as decent a human being as we can be. You’ve all heard the line, Man plans and God laughs. Why is that? Why should it be that life is so shockingly unpredictable? I would like to suggest that it is because our goals, wants, and needs are so different from God’s goals for us. Speaking about wants is easy. We need food and shelter; and we need money to buy those things, so we need to work or to have worked so that the Divine Presence can help us provide and so that we can contribute to providing for others. We also need love, human interaction and connections, intellectual stimulation, and spiritual nourishment. My teacher of blessed memory, Rabbi Gelberman, once gave a talk about wants and needs. In it he quoted Martin Buber who said, “The difference between the Holy and the Unholy is that the Holy are waiting to be sanctified.” Buber wrote; “We are called to the world in order to hallow it, to redeem it. The world needs us for its hallowing. It is waiting to be hallowed by us// and in hallowed contact with the world, with the things and people we meet on the way, we find our way to God.” So it is not that we should not have material wants, as long as we make the distinction between what we need and what we would like. And we can sanctify what we receive and what we achieve.
Goals are more elusive to speak about. It’s easy to identify short term goals. But how many of us can articulate long term goals? You all know the famous joke: A man goes into the hospital for surgery. The operation is successful. The nurse comes in and says, Mr. Shapiro, "Are you comfortable?" he says, "I make a good living." That’s the middle or upper middle class ideal: a comfortable, peaceful life, earning enough to enjoy our existence here on earth and not having to worry. This is probably the opposite of what God wants for us. Being what I call a spiritual naturalist, someone like Charles Darwin who observes events and draws conclusions from observations, it appears to me that God is interested in our spiritual growth. We are not allowed to stay on one level or in one place for very long. It is obvious that the world is in need of great improvement. How is this going to happen? It can only happen if we are forced to grow, through a series of tests, challenges, opportunities, and acts of Divine Grace: both the carrot and the stick. Every day of our lives we are in Life University: a school from which we will never graduate until we leave this plane of existence. And what are we tested on in this school of life? Compassion, Kindness, generosity, selflessness, caring, humility, and love. This is our life’s course work. This is why life has so many tests and challenges. There is a clash between what we want and what God wants. The world can only improve if we improve. We want a peaceful, easy life. God wants growth. God wants action.
The S’fat Emet, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter of Ger, has written “We have already been on a very high rung [of spiritual attainment] on Mt. Sinai. Because of that we can raise ourselves back up to Heaven….From now on [there will be] a way to find everything by means of struggle, as it is said, your deeds will draw you near.” A life of spiritual struggle is therefore our lot, in order to be raised up, in order for the world to keep improving. This is why each person is precious to God: each human being has been given challenges in their personalities and life circumstances to struggle with. We are all one soul, there is only one life between us. Each person is precious because they are purifying their small bit of the soul matter for all of us. Our sages taught, angels can’t rise in holiness. Only human beings can become greater than they are. Similarly, in the Talmud, R. Abbahu, said: The place occupied by repentant sinners cannot be attained even by the completely righteous (Sanhedrin 99a). It is improvement that God notices and requires. That’s why we must not ever be completely satisfied with our level of goodness. Life will not allow us to stand still. Norman Mailer famously wrote: “There was that law of life so cruel and so just which demanded that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.”
In the book, Duties of the Heart, by Rabbi Bachya ben Paquda it says that Abraham understood the Torah before it was given. He was already a kind, gracious, generous, compassionate, loving person. Yet God still gave him a further test: the ultimate test: was his faith and trust in God’s goodness so great that he would offer up his own will, his own son, in love, knowing that there must be an explanation and a blessing beyond his comprehension? He did, and he was greatly blessed. There were no other tests for him that we know of. There could not possibly be any other major tests Abraham could be given. He had passed them all. Luckily, none of us are or ever will be at his spiritual level. Our tests are such that we can pass them. Our sages taught, no one is given a test he cannot pass.
In this New Year, we will have many tests, challenges, and opportunities for growth. How will we respond? Most probably, this is what will be asked of us: We will be asked to care about each other more; to be of help and service to each other; to be generous: to keep our hearts open and loving, to let go of any anger, hurt, or hatred and to teach by example. By being willing to grow in goodness and by participating in the goals God has for us, we can not only deepen our understanding of the events in our lives, but also experience all the goodness and joy of God’s great gifts to us. By doing good, we increase goodness in the world and experience that goodness. Buber teaches: “… rejoicing in the world, if we hallow it with our whole being, leads to rejoicing in God.” We are on a magnificent journey on the road that leads to holiness. Angels can only stand still but humankind can rise to unimagined heights, and God is leading us there. May all of us grow in goodness in this New Year, passing our tests, hallowing life, expressing our love and kindness, living joyously, and striving to be grateful and thankful for our continual unfolding.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
The Power of the Gift
This week’s Torah portion is Nasso, which means take. Moses continues to take a census of the Levites; and the Levites are assigned tasks for dismantling and carrying the Tabernacle. Instructions for purifying the camp are given, there is a process to atone for sins, and laws that have been abandoned, such as the trial by ordeal, when a husband is suspicious of a wife; and the rules for temporary nuns and monks, the Nazarites, are outlined. This portion famously includes the Priestly Benediction; and concludes with the description of identical offerings of the tribal families for the dedication of the altar.
Sometimes when I read the Torah, something catches my attention. I make a note of it, and it’s only later that I realize that most of the portion actually addresses this one concept. Here are some verses to consider: “God spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the Children of Israel: a man or woman who commits any human sins, by committing treachery toward God and that person shall become guilty – they shall confess their sin that they committed; he shall make restitution for his guilt in its principal amount and add it’s fifth to it, and give it to the one to whom he is indebted. If the man has not kinsman to whom the debt can be returned, the returned debt is for God, for the Kohen, aside from the ram of atonement with which he shall provide him atonement.” (Num. 5:5-8)
This verse speaks about atonement, but also about giving. The entire sacrificial system is predicated on giving. Giving, in the Torah, is the mechanism for drawing closer to God, for atonement, and for celebrating. Also, in this Torah portion specifically, the Levites give their labor to God, the Tabernacle, and to the community of the Israelites. The Nazarites give their time and good intentions. The priests give their blessings, as well as their time, labor, and attention. The Tribal families give gifts. Giving, then, is very important for a number of reasons. We might ask, why is it that giving effects atonement and why is giving so important? We might think that confession effects atonement, or perhaps confession and personal change, and that certainly is true. But personal transformation is also a form of giving, one in which we dedicate ourselves and give ourselves over to acting in consonance with what we know is right, which is almost always what the Source of Life has asked us to do.
The verses from Nasso also teach us that in order to repair whatever we have done or have taken, we need to give more than we might expect; just the way one who has stolen something must return the stolen goods and also pay a fine. It’s the giving that reestablishes our harmonious relationships with each other and with the Divine Presence; and it doesn’t matter what we give, as long as our intentions in giving are good and pure. In a sense, all we have to give is ourselves. All of life, including giving, works the way love works. By giving love we set in motion the conditions for receiving it. By giving to each other, we set in motion the forces that allow us to receive and to grow, to feel good about ourselves and be able to share with each other.
The converse is also true. In the Talmud: R. Yochanan said, If someone keeps for himself the gifts he is required to turn over to the priests, God will punish him by depriving him of his prosperity and leaving him with nothing more than the small amount that he should have given away to God’s servants. R. Nachman b. Yitzchak affirms that giving causes us to receive: “Whoever has priestly gifts and gives them to the Kohen will be come wealthy, as it says, figuratively, whatever a person gives to the Kohen will belong to the giver.” (The Torah Revealed, R. A.Y. Finkel). As always, in spiritual life, our participation is required, and we are the impetus for our own growth, well-being, and prosperity. Not that we have total control, but that without our giving of ourselves, we make no progress. We can give time, Money, kindness, and teaching. We can give love, we can give help. The more we give the happier we become, as long as we are giving with open hearts and balanced judgment.
In the Midrash it says, (Midrash Rabba Numb. 8:7): “ by virtue of his own merit he will enjoy the fruit of his actions both in this world and in the next. Hence it is written, When thou eat the labor of your hands, meaning, the good deeds which he has painstakingly performed in this world; as you read, And there the weary are at rest (Job III, 17), and also, Whatsoever your hand attains to do by your strength, that do… (Eccl. IX, 10). What is his reward? Happy shall you be, and it shall be well with you.” Giving is the way the world works. One metaphor is seeing the world as a giant pocketwatch, whose many gears and springs work harmoniously together, each part contributing to the whole. In human interactions, withholding causes relationships to break down, but giving builds them up, gives us joy, and allows us to feel connected to God and each other. When we are sad, when we need to atone, when we want to reconnect, giving is the mechanism by which we can make a change. The Source of Life provides us with countless opportunities to give. All we have to do is to open ourselves to the awareness that opportunities are constantly being sent to us, and then seize them by giving generously to ourselves and the universe. May we be givers to each other, of whatever we are, and whatever we have to give, and by so doing, be among those who enrich life and live in great joy.
Sometimes when I read the Torah, something catches my attention. I make a note of it, and it’s only later that I realize that most of the portion actually addresses this one concept. Here are some verses to consider: “God spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the Children of Israel: a man or woman who commits any human sins, by committing treachery toward God and that person shall become guilty – they shall confess their sin that they committed; he shall make restitution for his guilt in its principal amount and add it’s fifth to it, and give it to the one to whom he is indebted. If the man has not kinsman to whom the debt can be returned, the returned debt is for God, for the Kohen, aside from the ram of atonement with which he shall provide him atonement.” (Num. 5:5-8)
This verse speaks about atonement, but also about giving. The entire sacrificial system is predicated on giving. Giving, in the Torah, is the mechanism for drawing closer to God, for atonement, and for celebrating. Also, in this Torah portion specifically, the Levites give their labor to God, the Tabernacle, and to the community of the Israelites. The Nazarites give their time and good intentions. The priests give their blessings, as well as their time, labor, and attention. The Tribal families give gifts. Giving, then, is very important for a number of reasons. We might ask, why is it that giving effects atonement and why is giving so important? We might think that confession effects atonement, or perhaps confession and personal change, and that certainly is true. But personal transformation is also a form of giving, one in which we dedicate ourselves and give ourselves over to acting in consonance with what we know is right, which is almost always what the Source of Life has asked us to do.
The verses from Nasso also teach us that in order to repair whatever we have done or have taken, we need to give more than we might expect; just the way one who has stolen something must return the stolen goods and also pay a fine. It’s the giving that reestablishes our harmonious relationships with each other and with the Divine Presence; and it doesn’t matter what we give, as long as our intentions in giving are good and pure. In a sense, all we have to give is ourselves. All of life, including giving, works the way love works. By giving love we set in motion the conditions for receiving it. By giving to each other, we set in motion the forces that allow us to receive and to grow, to feel good about ourselves and be able to share with each other.
The converse is also true. In the Talmud: R. Yochanan said, If someone keeps for himself the gifts he is required to turn over to the priests, God will punish him by depriving him of his prosperity and leaving him with nothing more than the small amount that he should have given away to God’s servants. R. Nachman b. Yitzchak affirms that giving causes us to receive: “Whoever has priestly gifts and gives them to the Kohen will be come wealthy, as it says, figuratively, whatever a person gives to the Kohen will belong to the giver.” (The Torah Revealed, R. A.Y. Finkel). As always, in spiritual life, our participation is required, and we are the impetus for our own growth, well-being, and prosperity. Not that we have total control, but that without our giving of ourselves, we make no progress. We can give time, Money, kindness, and teaching. We can give love, we can give help. The more we give the happier we become, as long as we are giving with open hearts and balanced judgment.
In the Midrash it says, (Midrash Rabba Numb. 8:7): “ by virtue of his own merit he will enjoy the fruit of his actions both in this world and in the next. Hence it is written, When thou eat the labor of your hands, meaning, the good deeds which he has painstakingly performed in this world; as you read, And there the weary are at rest (Job III, 17), and also, Whatsoever your hand attains to do by your strength, that do… (Eccl. IX, 10). What is his reward? Happy shall you be, and it shall be well with you.” Giving is the way the world works. One metaphor is seeing the world as a giant pocketwatch, whose many gears and springs work harmoniously together, each part contributing to the whole. In human interactions, withholding causes relationships to break down, but giving builds them up, gives us joy, and allows us to feel connected to God and each other. When we are sad, when we need to atone, when we want to reconnect, giving is the mechanism by which we can make a change. The Source of Life provides us with countless opportunities to give. All we have to do is to open ourselves to the awareness that opportunities are constantly being sent to us, and then seize them by giving generously to ourselves and the universe. May we be givers to each other, of whatever we are, and whatever we have to give, and by so doing, be among those who enrich life and live in great joy.
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