Our Torah reading for the conclusion of Pesach is from Exodus 13:17-15:26. At the beginning of Pesach, we read about the preparations for leaving Egypt and now, at the end of our festival, we read about leaving Egypt, crossing the Sea of Reeds with Pharaoh close at our heels, and beyond… A detail that goes quickly by is that, as everyone is preparing to leave, Moses takes the bones of Joseph with him to fulfill the promise that Joseph had obtained from the Children of Israel (his brothers) before his death:
So, Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here.” Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. (Gen. 50:25-26)
As we leave Egypt, we carry out unbaked bread and bones. The story of life and freedom is twinned together with the story of the past. That story is also part of the text of our Haggadah:
Then Joshua said to all the people, “Thus said the Eternal, the God of Israel: In olden times, your forefathers—Terah, father of Abraham and father of Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and worshipped other gods. But I took your father Abraham from beyond the Euphrates and led him through the whole land of Canaan and multiplied his offspring. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Seir as his possession, while Jacob and his children went down to Egypt… The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem…(Joshua 24:2-4, 32)
Joseph, too, has a place at our celebration. In recalling Joseph’s story, Rabbi Tali Adler teaches us that we are recalling two stories of slavery: While our ancestors may have been slaves, those who came before them had been slave sellers. Slave sellers??? Yes. Recall that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, where he ended up in Egypt; they took his tattered coat-of-many-colors and dipped it into blood and presented it to their father, Jacob who, thinking Joseph had been killed by a wild beast, mourned his death. Joseph rises to power in Egypt as he manages years of plenty and then of famine, and his family ultimately makes their way down to Egypt.
Even as we celebrate our redemption from slavery, we have a responsibility to remember the whole story. In remembering the act of Joseph’s brothers and telling the truth about our past, perhaps there is redemption in that act as well. Rabbi Adler teaches us that full redemption is what happens when we tell our stories in their entirety, hiding nothing. However, redemption is truly complete only when ALL are redeemed. Our story informs our memory as we are all called upon to “free the captive.” Each of us has this sacred responsibility to help to make this happen. Listening to others’ stories is the first step towards making our world the best it can be. These stories are not easy to tell — and are not easy to hear, but each step is a step in that direction. Aleinu – It is up to us to help bring us all closer to a world redeemed.Our Torah reading for the conclusion of Pesach is from Exodus 13:17-15:26. At the beginning of Pesach, we read about the preparations for leaving Egypt and now, at the end of our festival, we read about leaving Egypt, crossing the Sea of Reeds with Pharaoh close at our heels, and beyond… A detail that goes quickly by is that, as everyone is preparing to leave, Moses takes the bones of Joseph with him to fulfill the promise that Joseph had obtained from the Children of Israel (his brothers) before his death:
So, Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here.” Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. (Gen. 50:25-26)
As we leave Egypt, we carry out unbaked bread and bones. The story of life and freedom is twinned together with the story of the past. That story is also part of the text of our Haggadah:
Then Joshua said to all the people, “Thus said the Eternal, the God of Israel: In olden times, your forefathers—Terah, father of Abraham and father of Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and worshipped other gods. But I took your father Abraham from beyond the Euphrates and led him through the whole land of Canaan and multiplied his offspring. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Seir as his possession, while Jacob and his children went down to Egypt… The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem…(Joshua 24:2-4, 32)
Joseph, too, has a place at our celebration. In recalling Joseph’s story, Rabbi Tali Adler teaches us that we are recalling two stories of slavery: While our ancestors may have been slaves, those who came before them had been slave sellers. Slave sellers??? Yes. Recall that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, where he ended up in Egypt; they took his tattered coat-of-many-colors and dipped it into blood and presented it to their father, Jacob who, thinking Joseph had been killed by a wild beast, mourned his death. Joseph rises to power in Egypt as he manages years of plenty and then of famine, and his family ultimately makes their way down to Egypt. Even as we celebrate our redemption from slavery, we have a responsibility to remember the whole story. In remembering the act of Joseph’s brothers and telling the truth about our past, perhaps there is redemption in that act as well. Rabbi Adler teaches us that full redemption is what happens when we tell our stories in their entirety, hiding nothing. However, redemption is truly complete only when ALL are redeemed. Our story informs our memory as we are all called upon to “free the captive.” Each of us has this sacred responsibility to help to make this happen. Listening to others’ stories is the first step towards making our world the best it can be. These stories are not easy to tell — and are not easy to hear, but each step is a step in that direction. Aleinu – It is up to us to help bring us all closer to a world redeemed.
This week, our Torah portion is Tzav – Lev. 6:1-8:36. In the first seven chapters of Leviticus, Moses learns about the details and procedures of the sacrifices. He will then need to consecrate the Mishkan – the tabernacle; only then can he move on to the consecration of Aaron and his sons in their roles as cohanim – priests. Why is it important to stop and take note of these special roles for Aaron and his sons? Jacob Milgram in his commentary on the book of Leviticus comments: “The Bible is reminding us not to let important moments slide by unnoticed, but instead to make occasions with rituals that establish the significance of the moment and emblazon them in our collective memory.” (p. 78) Our lives are filled with important transitions. A baby is born, and ceremony functions to reinforce their identity for their family and community. A child reaches adolescence, and ritual reminds them and their congregation of their new responsibilities. A couple falls in love, and a ceremony under a wedding canopy transforms them from mere lovers to committed, covenantal partners. A person dies, and the preparation of their body for burial expresses core beliefs of their people — among them, that we are responsible for deep acts of caring for each other, that the human body is to be treated with sanctity, and that the transition from life to death has meaning. Our tradition teaches us a powerful lesson on the value of ritual marking the important liminal, or threshold, moments of our lives. During this year of the pandemic, we have been challenged to mark these transition points in our lives that occur in the context of community. Some events can be rescheduled; some cannot. I have co-officiated at a bris, while friends and family zoomed in for the ceremony.
Our congregation has celebrated a number of b’nai mitzvah with only family in the sanctuary, and more family and friends watching on our livestream youtube channel. Weddings have been rescheduled – and some couples are now venturing to our sanctuary (to livestream to family and friends) or outdoors, taking advantage of our parks and the spring and summer weather. And too many people have passed away; I have stood by the graveside in sub-zero temperatures and led funeral services by zoom from my home… and others’ memorial services are being scheduled for a later time, when people can gather safely. Through it all, we have striven to mark these important times. Times of celebration, and times of memory. The times of our lives.
Our Torah portion this Shabbat is Mishpatim – Ex. 21:1-24:18, and is filled with 53 ethical responsibilities and social demands (do’s and don’ts) that provide a blueprint for establishing order, and includes consequences for those who go beyond the limits of that order. This is a portion filled with details, and a person – a people – can be so caught up in the details, that they could lose sight of the bigger picture. The Israelites have an amazing opportunity to create change… to create a society that is thoughtful and caring, that is fair and just. And so it is with us. The opportunity to create change – or to be change agents – is always before us. It takes being concerned with facts and the process of truthful inquiry; but being concerned with all the facts and details should not cause us to lose sight of our moral and societal responsibilities. When Moses comes before the people and relates all these laws, the people respond: Na’aseh v’Nishmah – We will do and we will… listen? obey? understand? Does their response mean that they will do everything they have been told and then think about what they heard? Does it mean that they will do what they have been told and, as a result, obey? Or… could it mean that they will do the fact-finding and truthful inquiry and then will come to understand what it means to enter into this grand “bigger picture” of moral and societal responsibilities?
As we count down seven weeks to our virtual congregational retreat (January 29-30th), “Building Character – Making a Mensch,” featuring Dr. Greg Marcus, the founder of American Mussar, I thought it would be interesting to share insights into our Torah portions through the lens of Mussar. Mussar teachers through the centuries have sought deep, accurate, and useful insights into human life. These insights are based on different “middot” – the Hebrew term for “inner/character traits.” What makes us unique individuals, and what carves out a specific path for each of us, is the fact that those traits reside within each of us in different measures. (As it happens, the Hebrew word of measure is “middah.”) Our Torah portion this week is Mikeitz – Gen. 41:1-44:17. We left Joseph last week forlorn, forgotten, and left in prison, after he had interpreted dreams of the Pharaoh’s baker and cupbearer. Mikeitz opens with Pharaoh’s dreams, which none of his own interpreters or magicians can interpret. Suddenly, the royal cupbearer remembers Joseph – and recommends him to Pharaoh. Joseph is cleaned up and given a new set of clothes and brought before Pharaoh to interpret his dreams. Before he begins, he says: “Not I – It is God Who will account for Pharaoh’s well-being.” (Gen. 41:16) As he interprets the dreams, Joseph continues to give God credit for his perceived abilities. Pharaoh responds with: “Is there anyone like this to be found, a man with the spirit of God in him?” (Gen. 41:38) From his cocky teen years, tattling on his brothers, being doted on by his father, sharing his own “I’m the center of the world” dreams… basically being very self-centered… to his being sold into slavery by his brothers, imprisoned in Egypt, and now standing before Pharaoh, Joseph has developed his faith – the middah of emunah. This is a faith in something beyond ourselves; this is a faith in God. Many of us struggle with the kind of faith/emunah that is described in the biblical narrative. Rabbi Lisa D. Grant teaches that “faith may not help if material reward is our end goal… Cultivating faith can lead to greater patience, courage in facing hardship and the unknown, and acceptance that so much of life is beyond our control.” Faith is not something that can be understood intellectually or rationally, but needs to be learned from deep experience and reflection.
Joseph went through many difficult times and many opportunities for reflection and maturity. In the course of our lives… in the course of these Covid times… we, too, might find ourselves in difficult or frustrating situations. From the Mussar lens of emunah, you might consider:
What happens when you stop and ask yourself – where is God for me at this moment? How does asking that question shape your understanding and experience of what may happen?
How has emunah helped you overcome an obstacle or to cope with a challenge?
Next week, we take a look at the middah/ character trait of bitachon – trust.
* Rabbi Grant’s commentary is found in The Mussar Torah Commentary: A Spiritual Path to Living a Meaningful and Ethical Life, CCAR Press, 2020.
Our Torah portion this week is Vayeishev: Genesis 37:1 – 40:23, and begins the story of Joseph and his brothers, which will unfold over four Torah portions, parshiyot, bringing us to the end of the book of Genesis. As we make our way through this narrative, it is important to remember that every detail counts; what might appear as a random encounter can have epic proportions. Joseph is envied by his brothers; there is no peace between them. They cannot even talk to one another without arguing. When the brothers leave home to tend their sheep, Jacob tells Joseph to go and see how they are doing. This will ultimately lead to the dramatic incident where the brothers sell Joseph as a slave, and change everything. But it nearly didn’t happen. Joseph arrived at Shechem where he expected his brothers to be, but they were not there. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l, wrote: “He might well have wandered around for a while and then, failing to find them, gone home. None of the events that take up the rest of the Torah would have happened: no Joseph the slave, no Joseph the viceroy to Pharaoh, no storage of food during the years of plenty, no descent of Joseph’s family to Egypt, no exile, no slavery, no exodus. The entire story – already revealed to Abraham in a night vision – seemed about to be derailed.” Then we read the following:
“A man found [Joseph] wandering around in the fields and asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’ He replied, ‘I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?’ ‘They have moved on from here,’ the man answered. ‘I heard them say, “Let’s go to Dothan.”’ So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan.” (Bereishit 37:15-17)
These three verses are so detailed – and even include dialogue. Joseph is lost, and asks directions from a stranger who finds him wandering in a field. Who was this unnamed man? Our Torah commentators have different answers to that question: Rashi says he was the angel Gabriel. Ibn Ezra says he was a passerby. Ramban (Nachmanides) says that “the Holy One, blessed be He, sent him a guide without his knowledge.” Rabbi Sacks wonders whether Ramban meant without Joseph’s knowledge or without the guide’s knowledge. It could very well be both. “Ramban is teaching that the anonymous man represents an act of Divine guidance to make sure that Joseph went to where he was supposed to be, so that the rest of the drama could unfold. He may not have known he had such a role. Joseph surely did not know. To put it simply: he was an angel who did not know he was an angel. He had a vital role in the story. Without him, it would not have happened. But he had no way of knowing, at the time, the importance of his role.”
I invite you to think about how this relates to experiences you have had. Can you identify a person or people in your life who were there at just the right moment to help guide you on your course, set you on your way, to help things unfold in a certain way? It might be very hard to recognize this at the time, but in hindsight… Sometimes the angel can be another person. And sometimes, we can be the “angel” for another person; yet, we may never know how our acts have impacted the people we meet in our lives.
Our Torah portion this week is Vayishlach – Genesis 32:4 – 36:43 . Last week Jacob began his journey away from his family and the wrath of his brother Esau to make his way towards the unknown. He met God in his dream of the ladder, upon which the angels were moving up and down, and God promises Jacob that he will not be alone. Jacob awoke in the morning to move forward on his journey… and spent the next twenty or so years with his mother’s brother, Laban, and his family – falling in love with his daughter Rachel, working seven years to marry her, only to find out that it is her older sister, Leah, who was under the veil… and working another seven years for Rachel. Fathering 11 sons and one daughter with Rachel and Leah and their handmaidens, as well as building up Laban’s and his own wealth, Jacob is ready to return home and, with his wives and children and wealth, begins the journey home. Our portion begins as Jacob, hearing that Esau is coming his way with many horsemen, sets his wives and children and belongings on one side of a river… and he spends the night alone one the other side. Again, it is night… and again, Jacob could very well be afraid. And he struggles – wrestles – with an “ish” – a man… an angel… himself… God…? They struggle through the night, neither is victorious, and Jacob will not let his adversary go until he receives a blessing from him:
Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.” Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” Jacob asked, “Pray tell me your name.” But he said, “You must not ask my name!” And he took leave of him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning, “I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip. (Gen. 32:27-32)
Aviva Zornberg, commenting on this portion in Genesis: A Living Conversation, notes that although he receives a new name, Jacob “…doesn’t quite lose the name Jacob. When Abram becomes Abraham, he’s no longer Abram. But Jacob always remains Jacob. He’s referred to as Jacob many more times than he’s referred to as Israel. He has two names from now on… His identity is complex. He’s constantly in struggle between the two sides of his identity. It’s not a transformation, but an evolution. Something has opened up in him, but it’s a resource, not something that will absolutely define him.” (p. 304) And what about us? How are we effected after a struggle? We might not receive a new name, but does the struggle effect our identity and create in us a new resource from which to draw as we make our way forward? Sometimes those struggles can effect us physically as well, and perhaps we “limp” as we forge ahead; but forge ahead we must.
Nice: Marc Chagall Museum
“Jacob Wrestling With the Angel”
From the Marc Chagall Museum (36 Avenue Dr. Ménard). The museum houses the largest public collection of works by the Russian-French modernist artist Marc Chagall. The painting shown here — ”Jacob Wrestling With the Angel” — is one of Chagall’s ”Biblical Message” paintings that form the core of the museum’s collection. A few details on the work from its accompanying placard: Jacob Wrestling With the Angel – 1960-1966 – Oil on canvas This painting uses a deep purple in a continuation of the nocturnal atmosphere of Jacob’s Dream. Dawn will soon be breaking, and Jacob falls to his knees before the angel after a battle that has endured the night. The angel appears to be blessing Jacob as it touches his forehead. Pushed to the outer edges of the painting are various scenes from the patriarch’s life: in the upper left-hand corner is his encounter with Rachel at the well, while along the right-hand side, his son Joseph appears stripped by his brothers and thrown into a well. The sorrow of a father sobbing into the tunic of the son he believes to be gone is communicated through Jacob’s stooped position and prostration. Chagall generally uses this stance for the prophets announcing the misfortunes of the Jewish people.
[And what about the yellow rooster? In Chagall’s paintings it represents fertility, often painted together with lovers. Note that it is on the upper right side of the painting, across from Jacob and Rachel… and in front of the Joseph’s brothers.]
This week’s Torah portion is Toledot – Gen. 25:19-28:9, and opens with the story of the birth of Isaac and Rebecca’s sons, twins: Jacob and Esau. It is written that “Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for meat [and Esau was a hunter], and Rebecca loved Jacob.” (25:28) Yes, this is the story of Esau, the elder of the twins, spurning his birthright for a bowl of Jacob’s lentil stew… and then Rebecca helping Jacob disguise himself to receive Isaac’s blessing, as if he were the first born son. Is Isaac truly old and infirm and blind? Or is he blind to the situation around him? Or is he helping Rebecca bring about what was told to her when she was pregnant and the two “struggled in her womb”? This is a story of parental love… and favorites… and birthrights and blessings. And we find resonance in this story for the approval we seek (and need) from our parents to become self-sufficient adults. In their book on the families of Genesis, Wrestling With Angels by Naomi H. Rosenblatt and Joshua Horwitz, we read: “Jacob and Esau show us how desperately children need their parents’ love and how explicitly that love needs to be conveyed… Parents need to find time to share with children, to listen to them, to teach them. Nothing can replace a parent’s loving attention, and no child can get too much of it.” (p. 255) What birthrights and blessings can we offer our children? Our nieces and nephews? Our grandchildren? The chldren in our lives? We pray for the wisdom to favor no child, and to appreciate the gift that each child brings.From the beginning, help us give each child our fullest love and our fullest blessing;and help us give each child their share in the heritage of our people.* *based on a poem by Ruth F. Brin, “The Generations of Isaac”
Last Shabbat, the Jewish world lost a renowned scholar, writer, and rabbinic leader: Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I have quoted Rabbi Sacks a number of times over the past years, and used a number of his books as the basis for sermon ideas. For me, his Orthodox rabbinate was a rabbinate that sought to balance tradition with modernity, and made “a place at the table” for the many Jewish [and non-Jewish] voices that helped him help us move from “me” to “we.”In memory of Rabbi Sacks, I wanted to share a d’var Torah he wrote last year on this week’s Torah portion – Chayei Sarah – Genesis 23:1 – 25:18. The coincidence of this portion relating the deaths of Sarah and Abraham is not lost on me, and Rabbi’s Sacks’ focus on how one lives one’s life with purpose is a testament to the way he lived his own. JONATHAN SACKS – TO HAVE A WHY CHAYEI SARAH 5780 The name of our parsha seems to embody a paradox. It is called Chayei Sarah, “the life of Sarah,” but it begins with the death of Sarah. What is more, towards the end, it records the death of Abraham. Why is a parsha about death called “life”? The answer, it seems to me, is that – not always, but often – death and how we face it is a commentary on life and how we live it. Which brings us to a deeper paradox. The first sentence of this week’s parsha of Chayei Sarah, is: “Sarah’s lifetime was 127 years: the years of Sarah’s life.” A well-known comment by Rashi on the apparently superfluous phrase, “the years of Sarah’s life,” states: “The word ‘years’ is repeated and without a number to indicate that they were all equally good.” How could anyone say that the years of Sarah’s life were equally good? Twice, first in Egypt, then in Gerar, she was persuaded by Abraham to say that she was his sister rather than his wife, and then taken into a royal harem, a situation fraught with moral hazard. There were the years when, despite God’s repeated promise of many children, she was infertile, unable to have even a single child. There was the time when she persuaded Abraham to take her handmaid, Hagar, and have a child by her, which caused her great strife of the spirit. These things constituted a life of uncertainty and decades of unmet hopes. How is it remotely plausible to say that all of Sarah’s years were equally good? That is Sarah. About Abraham, the text is similarly puzzling. Immediately after the account of his purchase of a burial plot for Sarah, we read: “Abraham was old, well advanced in years, and God had blessed Abraham with everything” (Gen. 24:1). This too is strange. Seven times, God had promised Abraham the land of Canaan. Yet when Sarah died, he did not own a single plot of land in which to bury her, and had to undergo an elaborate and even humiliating negotiation with the Hittites, forced to admit at the outset that, “I am a stranger and temporary resident among you” (Genesis 23:4). How can the text say that God had blessed Abraham with everything? Equally haunting is its account of Abraham’s death, perhaps the most serene in the Torah: “Abraham breathed his last and died at a good age, old and satisfied, and he was gathered to his people.” He had been promised that he would become a great nation, the father of many nations, and that he would inherit the land. Not one of these promises had been fulfilled in his lifetime. How then was he “satisfied”? The answer again is that to understand a death, we have to understand a life. I have mixed feelings about Friedrich Nietzsche. He was one of the most brilliant thinkers of the modern age, and also one of the most dangerous. He himself was ambivalent about Jews and negative about Judaism.[1] Yet one of his most famous remarks is both profound and true: He who has a why in life can bear almost any how.[2] … Abraham and Sarah were among the supreme examples in all history of what it is to have a Why in life. The entire course of their lives came as a response to a call, a Divine voice, that told them to leave their home and family, set out for an unknown destination, go to live in a land where they would be strangers, abandon every conventional form of security, and have the faith to believe that by living by the standards of righteousness and justice they would be taking the first step to establishing a nation, a land, a faith and a way of life that would be a blessing to all humankind. Biblical narrative is, as Erich Auerbach said, “fraught with background,” meaning that much of the story is left unstated. We have to guess at it… With some conspicuous exceptions, we hardly know what any of the Torah’s characters felt. Which is why the two explicit statements about Abraham – that God blessed him with everything, and that he ended life old and satisfied – are so important. And when Rashi says that all of Sarah’s years were equally good, he is attributing to her what the biblical text attributes to Abraham, namely a serenity in the face of death that came from a profound tranquility in the face of life. Abraham knew that everything that happened to him, even the bad things, were part of the journey on which God had sent him and Sarah, and he had the faith to walk through the valley of the shadow of death fearing no evil, knowing that God was with him. That is what Nietzsche called “the strong heart.” … On their way to Auschwitz, Edith Eger’s mother said to her, “We don’t know where we are going, we don’t know what is going to happen, but nobody can take away from you what you put in your own mind.” That sentence became her survival mechanism. Initially, after the war, to help support the family, she worked in a factory, but eventually she went to university to study psychology and became a psychotherapist. She has used her own experiences of survival to help others survive life crises. Early on in [her] book, The Choice, she makes an immensely important distinction between victimization (what happens to you) and victimhood (how you respond to what happens to you). This is what she says about the first:
We are all likely to be victimized in some way in the course of our lives. At some point we will suffer some kind of affliction or calamity or abuse, caused by circumstances or people or institutions over which we have little or no control. This is life. And this is victimization. It comes from the outside.
And this, about the second:
In contrast, victimhood comes from the inside. No one can make you a victim but you. We become victims not because of what happens to us but when we choose to hold on to our victimization. We develop a victim’s mind – a way of thinking and being that is rigid, blaming, pessimistic, stuck in the past, unforgiving, punitive, and without healthy limits or boundaries.[3]
We have learned this extraordinary mindset from Holocaust survivors like Edith Eger and Viktor Frankl. But in truth, it was there from the very beginning, from Abraham and Sarah, who survived whatever fate threw at them, however much it seemed to derail their mission, and despite everything, they found serenity at the end of their lives. They knew that what makes a life satisfying is not external but internal, a sense of purpose, mission, being called, summoned, of starting something that would be continued by those who came after them, of bringing something new into the world by the way they lived their lives. What mattered was the inside, not the outside; their faith, not their often-troubled circumstances. I believe that faith helps us to find the ‘Why’ that allows us to bear almost any ‘How’. The serenity of Sarah’s and Abraham’s death was eternal testimony to how they lived. May Rabbi Sack’s family find comfort and strength at this time, and Zichrono Liv’rachah – May his memory be for a blessing. ____________________________________________[1] The best recent study is Robert Holub, Nietzsche’s Jewish Problem, Princeton University Press, 2015. [2] Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows, 12. [3] Edith Eger, The Choice, Rider, 2017, 9.
Last Shabbat, the Jewish world lost a renowned scholar, writer, and rabbinic leader: Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I have quoted Rabbi Sacks a number of times over the past years, and used a number of his books as the basis for sermon ideas. For me, his Orthodox rabbinate was a rabbinate that sought to balance tradition with modernity, and made “a place at the table” for the many Jewish [and non-Jewish] voices that helped him help us move from “me” to “we.”In memory of Rabbi Sacks, I wanted to share a d’var Torah he wrote last year on this week’s Torah portion – Chayei Sarah – Genesis 23:1 – 25:18. The coincidence of this portion relating the deaths of Sarah and Abraham is not lost on me, and Rabbi’s Sacks’ focus on how one lives one’s life with purpose is a testament to the way he lived his own. JONATHAN SACKS – TO HAVE A WHY CHAYEI SARAH 5780 The name of our parsha seems to embody a paradox. It is called Chayei Sarah, “the life of Sarah,” but it begins with the death of Sarah. What is more, towards the end, it records the death of Abraham. Why is a parsha about death called “life”? The answer, it seems to me, is that – not always, but often – death and how we face it is a commentary on life and how we live it. Which brings us to a deeper paradox. The first sentence of this week’s parsha of Chayei Sarah, is: “Sarah’s lifetime was 127 years: the years of Sarah’s life.” A well-known comment by Rashi on the apparently superfluous phrase, “the years of Sarah’s life,” states: “The word ‘years’ is repeated and without a number to indicate that they were all equally good.” How could anyone say that the years of Sarah’s life were equally good? Twice, first in Egypt, then in Gerar, she was persuaded by Abraham to say that she was his sister rather than his wife, and then taken into a royal harem, a situation fraught with moral hazard. There were the years when, despite God’s repeated promise of many children, she was infertile, unable to have even a single child. There was the time when she persuaded Abraham to take her handmaid, Hagar, and have a child by her, which caused her great strife of the spirit. These things constituted a life of uncertainty and decades of unmet hopes. How is it remotely plausible to say that all of Sarah’s years were equally good? That is Sarah. About Abraham, the text is similarly puzzling. Immediately after the account of his purchase of a burial plot for Sarah, we read: “Abraham was old, well advanced in years, and God had blessed Abraham with everything” (Gen. 24:1). This too is strange. Seven times, God had promised Abraham the land of Canaan. Yet when Sarah died, he did not own a single plot of land in which to bury her, and had to undergo an elaborate and even humiliating negotiation with the Hittites, forced to admit at the outset that, “I am a stranger and temporary resident among you” (Genesis 23:4). How can the text say that God had blessed Abraham with everything? Equally haunting is its account of Abraham’s death, perhaps the most serene in the Torah: “Abraham breathed his last and died at a good age, old and satisfied, and he was gathered to his people.” He had been promised that he would become a great nation, the father of many nations, and that he would inherit the land. Not one of these promises had been fulfilled in his lifetime. How then was he “satisfied”? The answer again is that to understand a death, we have to understand a life. I have mixed feelings about Friedrich Nietzsche. He was one of the most brilliant thinkers of the modern age, and also one of the most dangerous. He himself was ambivalent about Jews and negative about Judaism.[1] Yet one of his most famous remarks is both profound and true: He who has a why in life can bear almost any how.[2] … Abraham and Sarah were among the supreme examples in all history of what it is to have a Why in life. The entire course of their lives came as a response to a call, a Divine voice, that told them to leave their home and family, set out for an unknown destination, go to live in a land where they would be strangers, abandon every conventional form of security, and have the faith to believe that by living by the standards of righteousness and justice they would be taking the first step to establishing a nation, a land, a faith and a way of life that would be a blessing to all humankind. Biblical narrative is, as Erich Auerbach said, “fraught with background,” meaning that much of the story is left unstated. We have to guess at it… With some conspicuous exceptions, we hardly know what any of the Torah’s characters felt. Which is why the two explicit statements about Abraham – that God blessed him with everything, and that he ended life old and satisfied – are so important. And when Rashi says that all of Sarah’s years were equally good, he is attributing to her what the biblical text attributes to Abraham, namely a serenity in the face of death that came from a profound tranquility in the face of life. Abraham knew that everything that happened to him, even the bad things, were part of the journey on which God had sent him and Sarah, and he had the faith to walk through the valley of the shadow of death fearing no evil, knowing that God was with him. That is what Nietzsche called “the strong heart.” … On their way to Auschwitz, Edith Eger’s mother said to her, “We don’t know where we are going, we don’t know what is going to happen, but nobody can take away from you what you put in your own mind.” That sentence became her survival mechanism. Initially, after the war, to help support the family, she worked in a factory, but eventually she went to university to study psychology and became a psychotherapist. She has used her own experiences of survival to help others survive life crises. Early on in [her] book, The Choice, she makes an immensely important distinction between victimization (what happens to you) and victimhood (how you respond to what happens to you). This is what she says about the first:
We are all likely to be victimized in some way in the course of our lives. At some point we will suffer some kind of affliction or calamity or abuse, caused by circumstances or people or institutions over which we have little or no control. This is life. And this is victimization. It comes from the outside.
And this, about the second:
In contrast, victimhood comes from the inside. No one can make you a victim but you. We become victims not because of what happens to us but when we choose to hold on to our victimization. We develop a victim’s mind – a way of thinking and being that is rigid, blaming, pessimistic, stuck in the past, unforgiving, punitive, and without healthy limits or boundaries.[3]
We have learned this extraordinary mindset from Holocaust survivors like Edith Eger and Viktor Frankl. But in truth, it was there from the very beginning, from Abraham and Sarah, who survived whatever fate threw at them, however much it seemed to derail their mission, and despite everything, they found serenity at the end of their lives. They knew that what makes a life satisfying is not external but internal, a sense of purpose, mission, being called, summoned, of starting something that would be continued by those who came after them, of bringing something new into the world by the way they lived their lives. What mattered was the inside, not the outside; their faith, not their often-troubled circumstances. I believe that faith helps us to find the ‘Why’ that allows us to bear almost any ‘How’. The serenity of Sarah’s and Abraham’s death was eternal testimony to how they lived. May Rabbi Sacks’ family find comfort and strength at this time, and Zichrono Liv’rachah – May his memory be for a blessing. ____________________________________________[1] The best recent study is Robert Holub, Nietzsche’s Jewish Problem, Princeton University Press, 2015. [2] Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows, 12. [3] Edith Eger, The Choice, Rider, 2017, 9.
Our yearly Torah reading cycle begins again this week, as we roll the scroll to the very beginning – Bereishit – Gen. 1:1-6:8. In Gen. 1:27 we read: Be’tzelem Elohim bara oto; zachar un’keivah bara otam – In the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. In his commentary on this verse, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik* asks what it means that being made in the image of God is directly followed by man being created as two sexes, and suggests that male and female are to be taken not only in the physiological sense but also in the spiritual/metaphysical sense as well. What is this “spiritual/metaphysical sense”? Every soul consists of both a male and female persona – a spiritual androgyny. The combination of these elements can be found in each individual: the dynamic and the active… and the affected and the passive. Each of us both influences and is influenced; we are both a giver and a receiver. Only through the development of both attributes can we attain our full spiritual potential. Soloveitchik offers the example of a teacher and students. As the teacher teaches, he (or she) is the giver, while the students receive. At one point in the lesson, however, a perceptive student may ask a particularly incisive question that leads the thoughts of the teacher in new directions. At this point, the student becomes the giver, and the teacher becomes the receiver. The roles are not fixed. Teachers can inform… and be informed. Students can be informed… and can inform… We are blessed as physical beings; and we are also blessed spiritually. When we actualize our blessing of being a receiver, we open ourselves to absorb spiritual wealth and beauty. When we actualize our blessing of being a giver, we use our spiritual energies to give to others. We cannot do this by ourselves. We are dependent upon each other in order to develop our best selves. I invite you to consider times in your life when you have been a giver… and a receiver… and how you might continue to develop those attributes in the future… *Soloveitchik is considered the outstanding figure of modern Orthodox Judaism in 20th century America, synthesizing Orthodoxy and modernity, and seen by some to have explicated Judaism in terms of universal philosophical and religious ideas.
The Torah reading for Sukkot is Lev. 22:26-23:44, and includes the “fixed times of the Eternal, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions.” (23:2) Sacred occasions – Mikra-ay Kodesh. This term is used ten times; each “fixed time” – beginning with Shabbat – is a sacred occasion, another opportunity for holiness. We tend to associate location with holiness. One can imagine the pomp and circumstance that accompanied the festivals in Jerusalem during Temple times. Our own memories of being in our own sanctuaries for holiday celebrations bring up images of modern-day pomp and circumstance that perhaps we recall with a sense of holiness. And now our own homes have become our sanctuary spaces. And our challenge is to enter into the mindset of holy space. I would like for us to also note that each fixed time is a sacred occasion… What does it mean to have sacred time? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes about this in his book The Sabbath: “There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.” Heschel explains that Shabbat becomes a “palace in time”… and not only offers us an opportunity for weekly spiritual communion and time with friends and family, but it also has the potential to help shape the way we live the other six days of the week. Rabbi Or N. Rose expounds on this: Will our time with friends and family make us more sensitive to the needs of other human beings? Will our time celebrating the grandeur and beauty of nature make us more sensitive to the needs of the earth? Will we be able to hold in our hearts and minds the realization that God is the supreme author of life and that we are called upon by the Divine to serve as co-creators of a just and compassionate world? In brief, can we carry with us something of the Sabbath consciousness through the rest of the week? The mikra’ay kodesh – Torah’s sacred occasions throughout the year [Shabbat, Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot] offer us continuing opportunities to “be” and to consider our connections with others, the natural world around us, and with the Divine. In this way, holiness is not confined to space, but across time.
