As The Torah Turns

Chagall Moses beside burning bush 2

Shemot – Ex. 1:1-6:1 (Jan. 17/18)

As the Torah Turns

Rabbi Lader’s Weekly D’var Torah

Exodus/Shemot – Ex. 1:1-6:1

 This week we begin the book of Exodus/Shemot – Ex. 1:1-6:1.  Hundreds of years have passed since Jacob and his family settled in Egypt under the protection of Joseph… And now, “a new king arose who did not know Joseph” (Ex. 1:8) and the people of Israel are enslaved in Egypt.  Moses, saved from death by Pharaoh’s daughter, grows up in the palace, but does not stand idly by when he sees an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave.  He strikes the taskmaster – and kills him; realizing his own life is now in danger, he makes his way into the wilderness, marries the daughter of a Midianite priest, and becomes a shepherd. Upon taking his sheep into the wilderness, he turns to see a wonder – a bush is burning, but is not consumed…! (Ex. 3:2)  Moses encounters God at this bush, and God tells him to “take off the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.” (Ex. 3:5) God has appeared to Moses to send him on a mission – Tell Pharaoh to let My people go; the time of liberation is at hand. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel – rabbi, scholar and philosopher who marched right beside Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – taught: “The road to the sacred leads through the secular… The Jewish form of religious experience is always in acts… in instilling a spiritual quality into the things we are doing.” [“No Time for Neutrality” in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays. (1997)] And the things we should be doing are those things which seek to overthrow the “pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, and falsehoods.” [“On Prayer” in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays. (1997)] And in these acts, holiness is found.  In the inner city… in the posh neighborhoods… in the poverty-stricken mountains… in the arid plains… in the tent cities of refugees… Alas, the list goes on and on… Perhaps Woody Guthrie – singer, guitarist, songwriter, and social activist (1912–1967) – captured this sense of finding the holy wherever we find ourselves in his song “Holy Ground.” The words are Woody’s, from 1954, but the melody is by Frank London, a trumpeter and composer with the Klezmatics.

Holy Ground

Words by Woody Guthrie, 1954, Music by Frank London (The Klezmatics), 2003

Take off, take off your shoes – This place you’re standing, it’s holy groundTake off, take off your shoes – The spot you’re standing, its holy ground These words I heard in my burning bush – This place you’re standing, it’s holy groundI heard my fiery voice speak to me – This spot you’re standing, it’s holy ground That spot is holy holy ground – That place you stand it’s holy groundThis place you tread, it’s holy ground – God made this place his holy ground Take off your shoes and pray – The ground you walk it’s holy groundTake off your shoes and pray – The ground you walk it’s holy ground Every spot on earth I traipse around – Every spot I walk it’s holy groundEvery spot on earth I traipse around – Every spot I walk it’s holy ground Every spot it’s holy ground – Every little inch it’s holy groundEvery grain of dirt it’s holy ground – Every spot I walk it’s holy ground Here is a recording of “Holy Ground” by the Klezmatics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SkhGNBe51g

 Friends — Where is your burning bush? Where is your holy ground? How does it affect how we act in the world when we see the potential for holiness in every spot we walk?

From Previous Weeks

Mikketz – Gen. 41:1-44:17 (Dec. 27/28)

As the Torah Turns

Rabbi Lader’s Weekly D’var Torah

Mikketz – Gen. 41:1-44:17 (Dec. 27/28)

Our Torah portion this week is Mikketz – Gen. 41:1-44:17 – and continues the story of Joseph in Egypt.  It is Pharaoh who has dreamed frightening dreams and it is Joseph who is called upon from the depths of his imprisonment, cleaned up, and brought to Pharaoh to interpret his dreams. In The Fire Waits, his collection of poetry linked to the weekly Torah portion, Rabbi Michael Hecht z”l wrote:      … Only Joseph knows the answer:     “Pharoah, do not fear the future.     I have had my dreams like you.     Yours is not a nightmare, if you will not have it so.     God has given you the power to thwart nightmares.      “Make the future happen.     Do not succumb to your bad dreams.     That is God’s message to Pharaoh.”      … Strengthen us against [our nightmares].     Let them not rule us.      Put our dreams into our hands.     Help us make [them] false.     Save us from inaction.     Let us be the masters of our dreams. 

This Shabbat features the growing light of our menorahs, the light of our Shabbat candles, and the first sliver of the new moon of Tevet.  This Shabbat is filled with light that grows brighter and fuller, bringing light into darkness.  May that light be reflected in each of us, giving us strength and courage to act beyond our darkest dreams, and to bring that growing (and glowing) light into our world.

 

From Previous Weeks

Va-Yishlach Gen. 32:4-36:43 (Dec. 20/21)

As the Torah Turns

Rabbi Lader’s Weekly D’var Torah

Va-Yishlach – Gen. 32:4-36:43 (Dec. 20/21)

Our Torah portion this week is Va-Yishlach (Gen. 32:4-36:43).  Rabbi Michael Zedek, of Emanuel Congregation in Chicago, offers an interesting insight… This week’s portion begins with the well-known wrestling match out of which Jacob emerges with a new name, his and our name – Israel… The Hebrew is unequivocal that Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him. Was the encounter with an angel, as the Prophet Hosea suggests (Hosea 12:4), or with a person, or with his conscience? All are viable options, and the text gets even more complex and vital as it reaches a climax with Jacob receiving a new name, Yisrael – Israel, with the declaration (citing the JPS translation) “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human and have prevailed.” The Hebrew for “El – beings divine” is in fact nothing less than one of the names for God. Additionally, “va-tuchal -and you have prevailed” may similarly be a little off as well, suggesting an element of hubris, for the Hebrew recalls a modern Hebrew “street phrase” (yachol lihiyot), which means it is possible… you are capable, competent; it’s what you do, both with God and with persons, which is your skill, capacity, duty, your role… Jacob emerges from the encounter limping, which, even as it may be description of a physical condition, also must be a metaphor for the wounds life has inflicted on him… [and, truly, on us all]. As he leaves that place, he names the location Peniel because… “I have seen God face to face and my life was preserved.” The reference or challenge, of course, to a well-known conviction that no one can behold God in full connection and survive the encounter. So… did he wrestle with God or a man? And the deep answer is yes. As supporting evidence, I refer us to the next chapter as Jacob meets and, perhaps, reconciles with his brother Esau. The text informs us that Jacob responds to Esau’s embrace with a radical insight or formula (Genesis 33:10).  “… [F]or to see your face is like seeing the face of God, and you have received me favorably.” In brief, our tradition teaches that when we truly encounter, meet and connect with the other, with all others, even our adversaries, we are as close as humans may approach to seeing, embracing and being part of a divine encounter… Our encounters with each other are always potential moments to meet the sacred; every meeting may be filled with blessing. Simply put, how we deal with each other is holy work… What we do with and to each other, we do to God. Our actions bring a sacred dimension into the world, or, as we push away or discount the other, even an adversary, we are diminishing holiness, turning away from a moment to arrive at Peniel – a place, a moment where we just might meet the face of God.

Marc Chagall – Jacob wrestling with the angel

From Previous Weeks

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Va-Yetze Gen. 28:10-32:3 (Dec. 6/7)

As the Torah Turns

Rabbi Lader’s Weekly D’var Torah

Va-Yetze – Gen. 28:10-32:3 (Dec. 6/7)

Our Torah portion this week is Va-Yetze – Gen. 28:10-32:3 and, with Jacob on his way to Haran to escape the murderous intentions of his brother Esau, relates the wondrous story of “Jacob’s Ladder” – his dream of angels ascending and descending from earth to heaven, and God standing beside him with promises of a safe return to the home and land that he has fled.  Jacob awakens from his dream saying, “Surely God is in this place and me, I did not know it!” (Gen. 28:16) The Hebrew grammar of this verse is unusual.  The initial “ve-anochi – and me” seems superfluous.  In the past tense “lo ya-dati – I did not know” – the I is already included in the Hebrew form of the verb.  Yet… the reading of the verse seems to imply that both God and Jacob were in that place, and Jacob did not realize that.   In his classic work on Polish Chassidism, Shelomoh of Radomsk (1803-1866) teaches that “…if the Presence of the Holy One indeed dwells there, if I have invoked the holiness of this place, it must be because ‘ … and me’ – my I, I did not know.”  I eliminated what was in me – my sense of self-awareness, any consciousness of ego, any trace of self-intention.  Everything was now only for the sake of … unifying the Holiness within all being and its Presence.” In other words, when Jacob was able to move beyond himself… he was able to come to know God and to feel God’s Presence.  Has there been a time when you have been able to move beyond your sense of self-awareness to become aware of the Presence of Holiness?

From Previous Weeks

Toledot – Gen. 25:19-28:9 (Nov. 29/30)

Toledot – Gen. 25:19-28:9 (Nov. 29/30)

This week’s Torah portion is Toledot – Gen. 25:19-28:9, and we learn from Rabbi Neil Janes, Executive Director of the Lyons Learning Project and Rabbi of West London Synagogue: Yitzhak said to Yaakov, “Come closer, that I may feel you my son” (Bereshit 27:21)”I am old now and I do not know the day of my death” (Bereshit 27:2) [These verses from our Torah portion offer us the opportunity to re-examine] the nature of aging, of ill-health and responsibility. We spend many hours discussing whether Isaac was going along with the ruse hatched by Rebecca and Jacob to steal the patriarchal blessing from Esau. Dressed up as Esau, Jacob approaches his father and pretends to be the older son. Today, [as we] read the text differently… Isaac’s vulnerability is evident… and heartbreaking. “Then his father Yitzhak said to him [Yaakov]: Come close and kiss me, my son” (Bereshit 27:26) In the extended discussion of honor of one’s parents in Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 31b, Rabbi Abbahu recounts the example of Avimi his son. We’re told in the gemara that Avimi would run to his father’s call, even though he himself had five ordained sons (grandsons to R. Abbahu). On one occasion Avimi was called by R. Abbahu to bring water to drink. “Before he brought it, Rabbi Abbahu dozed off. Avimi bent over him until he woke up.” The language of the gemara to describe the dozing of Rabbi Abbahu is the word namnem, from the verb נום. The sense of the word is slumber, drowsy, even to be dying. Perhaps, the gemara hints, Rabbi Abbahu is edging towards the liminal world between life and death. And yet we know this verb well from Psalm 121:4 – “הנה לא ינום – the Guardian of Israel does not slumber.” Honoring parents is … akin to honoring the Holy Blessed One. “Yitzhak breathed his last and died, he was gathered to his kin, in ripe old age” (Bereshit 35:29) Isaac does not die immediately after the incident with his sons in [this week’s] Torah portion. Much unfolds before his eventual death, though we hear really nothing about his life of old age… These years – the hidden, often challenging, beautiful and uplifting, but as frequently full of diminishing health – have become more and more something for us to address as a people, as the direction of care now frequently extends up and down two or three generations… 

Rav Yosef teaches… that both the [whole] tablets of the Covenant and the pieces of the broken tablets are placed in the Ark. One should learn from here that with regard to a Torah scholar who has forgotten his Torah knowledge due to circumstances beyond his control, e.g., illness, one may not behave toward him in a degrading manner. Although the first tablets were broken it is prohibited to treat them with disrespect, due to their sanctity. A Torah scholar who forgot the Torah knowledge he once possessed is likened to these broken tablets. (BT Menachot 99a)

 We do not set aside people whose grandeur, on the surface, seems to have been diminished or whose vitality has dulled, who need to feel our presence to know who we are.  Our parents are in a sense our Torah. They are the source of our legacy just as the Torah is the source of our divine legacy. 

Chayei Sarah (The life of Sarah)- Gen. 23:1-25:28,

As the Torah Turns

Rabbi Lader’s Weekly D’var Torah

Chayei Sarah (The Life of Sarah) – Gen. 23:1-25:28 (Nov. 22/23)

Our Torah portion this week is Chayei Sarah (The life of Sarah)- Gen. 23:1-25:28, and opens not telling about the life of Sarah, but about her death, and then describes Abraham’s purchase of a burial place for her.  After purchasing the plot and mourning his wife, Abraham then turns to finding a wife for his son, Isaac.  Abraham’s servant is sent off to the land of Abraham’s birth, to his people, and there the servant finds Rebecca and she agrees to go back with him to Canaan to marry Isaac.   We read: “And Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother, Sarah; he took Rebecca and she became his wife and he loved her. Thus did Isaac find comfort after [the death of] his mother.” (Gen. 26:67) Rabbi Chaim Stern writes: There is a time to mourn, and a time to accept; a time to rage against the fading of the light, and a time to kindle another light.” After sorrow, may we rise up to find comfort in new lights that are kindled.

Vayera – Genesis 18:1-22:24 (Nov. 8/9)

As the Torah Turns

Rabbi Lader’s Weekly D’var Torah

Vayera – Genesis 18:1-22:24 (Nov. 22/23

This week’s commentary on our Torah portion, Vayera – Genesis 18:1-22:24, comes to us from Rabbi Michael Gilboa, founder of the Chicagoland Center for Conversion to Judaism.  He writes that: “…According to our tradition, Avraham was 48 at the Tower of Babel’s doom, and he was 99 when the events [we read in this week’s portion] took place. In little more than 50 years we see the emergence of two diametrically opposed ways of being human.
Sodom and Gomorrah, though extreme, ought to sound familiar to us. After all, we should love our families. We ought to care most about our neighbors. We should be more concerned with our own city than with people halfway around the world. And yet, this exclusion that is so natural to us, that comes from a place of love for those around us, is condemned by God. In the most striking terms God told Avraham and us that although there will be more than one right answer to the question of being human, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any wrong answers. There is a limit to our experimentation, and Sodom and Gomorrah surpassed that limit when identity and allegiance transformed into callous and cruel exclusion. In the name of those they loved, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah denied the humanity of the outsider, and a mere half-century of this inhumanity was enough for God to shut down the experiment in its entirety. Avraham and his emerging tribe, on the other hand, were marked by radical inclusion. Everyone was welcome in Avraham and Sarah’s tent. Everyone was invited to the table. There was no such thing as a foreigner. Avraham was so dedicated to the power of welcoming that he sat at the entrance of his tent waiting to greet passersby even as he was recovering from his circumcision. He welcomed them wholeheartedly, and through his radical welcoming Avraham furthered his mission of telling the world about God, inviting strangers to learn about their creator over a meal, and transforming outsiders into insiders through the common experience of God’s love. Avraham’s was, and still is, an audacious experiment that could only come from faith in a single God who transcends all tribes and nationalities. It is not easy to keep the tent open, especially as so many of us live in majority cultures trying their own Sodom-like experiments, but our faith in radical welcoming is ultimately a faith in the God of Genesis: a God who cares about all people, loves all nations, and believes in our shared sacred human destiny.” In the Reform movement, this audacious experiment has come to be called “audacious hospitality.”  Like Avraham and Sarah, the walls of our tent are opened wide; we strive to be a welcoming congregation as we join hands together moving forward on our journeys… 

Audacious Hospitality

Lech Lecha – Gen. 12:1-17:27 (Nov. 8/9)

Lech Lecha – Gen. 12:1-17:27 (Nov. 1/2)

Our Torah portion this week is Lech Lecha – Gen. 12:1-17:27 – and opens with God speaking to Abraham saying, “Go (Lech) forth (for yourself – Lecha), from your land, from your relatives, and from the house of your father… to the land that I will show you.”   Rabbi Shalom Noah Berezovsky, the Slominer Rabbi (20th century) teaches: “Go for yourself, that is, go to your purpose, to your destiny.  In order to accomplish this incredible and unique purpose, one must leave one’s land, one’s relatives, and the house of their father…  To go forward, one must analyze, reflect, and refine to be able to achieve one’s purpose in the world.” (Nesivos Shalom) The word “Lech” is from the Hebrew word for go, or walk… The Slominer points out that God tells Abraham Lech Lecha three times, at three different ages in his life, teaching us that in all periods in our life we must be committed to making positive changes… constantly striving to achieve our purpose in this world.  Status quo is not an option.

Parshat Ekev

Parshat Ekev

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GOOD MORNING!  What is true spirituality? My beloved friend, Rabbi Avraham Goldhar, who has a revolutionary approach to helping kids get better grades with less study time in both secular and Jewish studies (GoldharMethod.com) came up with the following paradigm of attributes to clarify the definition of spirituality. Put a check mark by one attribute from each pair that you think is more spiritual:

  1. Emotion……………Intellect
  2. Kindness………….Justice
  3. Community……….Solitude
  4. God…………………Nature
  5. Serenity……………Challenge

Now, if you want to try something interesting, put an “x” mark by each attribute that you associate with the Jewish people.

What is fascinating is that most people associate spirituality with emotion, kindness, solitude, nature, and serenity … and the Jewish people with intellect, justice, community, God, and challenge. The reason is that we have an Eastern notion of spirituality — an all encompassing emotional bliss connecting with the universe. The Jewish approach to spirituality is based on fulfilling a purpose, to fix the world (tikun olom) — which requires intellect, justice, community, God, and challenge.

For the Jew, intellect is to be channeled into emotion – emotions can’t rule you; you must do the right thing. Justice provides for a world of kindness. A society has to be willing to identify rights and wrongs and stand up to evil. If not, one can attempt to do kindness, but end up enabling evil. Community provides you with an understanding of who you are – a member of a people – even when you are alone, you are still part of something more. Realizing that there is a Creator and having a relationship with the Creator makes the natural much more profound. This world is a veiled reality with the Creator behind it. People can only receive serenity when they live up to their challenges; otherwise, they are tormented in their pursuit of serenity by not living up to their potential.

There was once a Jewish girl who stopped in Israel on her way to India to seek spirituality. Friends suggested that she go to Neve Yerushalayim to take a class and give Judaism one last shot before seeking other pathways to spirituality. The one class happened to be studying the laws regarding returning a lost item — when is an item considered lost, what if the person gave up hope of its return, what constitutes a legitimate identifying mark to claim the item, to what extent and cost of time and money are you obligated for returning the item… The girl was furious! This is NOT spirituality. She left in a huff and headed off to India.

Six months later she and her guru were discussing a philosophical matter while walking through the village. They came upon a wallet filled with rupees. The guru picked it up, put it in his pocket and continued on with his point. The girl interrupted him and asked, “Aren’t you going to see if there is identification in the wallet to return it?” The guru replied, “No. It was his karma that he lost it; it’s my karma that I found it. It’s mine.” The girl implored, “But, he might have a large family and that might be his monthly earnings … they could starve if you don’t return it!” The guru responded, “That is their karma.”

The young lady then remembered the class she took in Jerusalem – and realized that spirituality without justice, kindness, and concern for others is just a false spiritual high, corrupt emotion. She returned to Jerusalem and ultimately returned to her Torah heritage.

The Torah gives us great insight on spirituality. The Almighty appears to Avraham on the third day following his Bris Mila (circumcision of the covenant). In the middle of their conversation, Avraham sees three men approaching and wishes to offer hospitality. He says to the Almighty, “My Lord, if I have found favor in Your eyes, do not go away from Your servant” (Genesis 18:3). Avraham is asking the Almighty to “wait on hold” while he goes to take care of three mortals? How can this be? What can be greater spirituality than talking with God?

The answer is given in the Talmud (Shevuos 35b, Shabbos 127a), “Hospitality to travelers is greater than receiving the Divine Presence” — better to be like God than to talk with God! Better to take responsibility for the world and its inhabitants, than to commune with God. That is true spirituality … to be God-like — and that is why one needs intellect, justice, community, God, and challenge if one truly wants genuine spirituality!


Parshat Ekev

Parshat Ekev
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GOOD MORNING!  What is true spirituality? My beloved friend, …

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Parshat Vetchanan

Parshat Vetchanan
V’etchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11) The Fifth Commandment by Nesanel Yoel Safran A story for children …

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Parshat Devorim

Parshat Devarim
Devarim (Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22) 
The Book of the Covenant 
by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 
As …

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